Art and Gender in Contemporary Spain

Course focus and approach:  

This is a course that emphasizes gender perspectives in regards to contemporary visual culture. We will be looking at recent -and contemporary classic- artworks through “purple glasses”, thus combining feminist traditions with masculinity studies.  

Course description:  

This course provides a dynamic, multidisciplinary introduction to Contemporary Art in Spain. A background on this specified field is not required. For this reason not only the main artistic events will be covered, but also some political, historical and cultural issues that might be relevant. Although this course is mainly based on lectures and class debate, four visits to art centers and exhibitions will also be part of the course requirements. These visits will be made during class time and are equivalent to a usual in-class lecture. We will discuss recent classics as well as emerging artists, and we will cover a wide range of artistic practices, from photography to afterpop music, including installation art, performance art and comic art. Although the course offers several relevant clues to understand the historical context and particular conditions in Spain, it is also intended as a more general insight into contemporary artistic strategies and topics. 

Weekly schedule:
WEEK 1
Session 1: Introduction to the course. Public Art and Public Media, 1: Interventions of Contemporary Spanish Artists in the US. Daniel Canogar in New York, Jaume Plensa in Chicago. Self-guided field trip to 3 public artworks nearby UPF. Read: Check link on the “Self Guided Field Trip” file.
Session 2: Public Art and Public Media, 2: Debate on your field trip. Tessels and pixels: from mosaics to Googlegrams. The small picture and the big picture. Read: Josep Renau exhibit brochure.
WEEK 2
Session 1: Field Trip: El Born Centre Cultural. Read: Joan Fontcuberta, “A Decalogue For PostPhotographers”.
Session 2: Read: Public Art and Public Media 3: From analog photography to digital images. How we all became post-photographers. Carlos Marín, “A Byzantine Debate”.
WEEK 3
Session 1: In the edge, 1: Is it transgressive yet? The Spanish satirical tradition. The two types of satire and the goyesque. Read: Newspaper articles on the case of Francisco Franco’s public sculptures. Paper 1 Due.
Session 2: In the Edge, 2: Iconoclasia and iconodulia. Class debate on the case of Franco’sculptures. Read: Documentation on Keith Haring’s mural.
WEEK 4
Session 1: Field Trip: MACBA. Read: ‘The Fall and Rise of Lanzarote’. Spotify audition: El Guincho, Alegranza.
Session 2: Landscape Cultures, 1: The Canary Islands. Wind toys and Atlantic subjectivities. The reinvention of Lanzarote and Alegranza’s tropicalia. Ortega & Jiménez Blanco, “The Castillian Plateau and its National Symbolism”.
WEEK 5
Session 1: Landscape Cultures, 2: The Meseta myth, from the 98’Generation to cybercultures.
Session 2: MIDTERM EXAM. Read: Teresa Bastardes’ article on Museu del Disseny’s Dressing the Body.
WEEK 6
Session 1: Field Trip: Museu del Disseny (Museum of Design). Watch: John Berger, Ways of Seeing
Session 2: Imagine a body: Fighting gender wars… with style. New, empowering roles. Feminism meets the fashion industry. Read: Eloy Fernández Porta, “Reifictions: On Emotional Industries and Feminised Work.”
WEEK 7
Session 1: Imagine a body: Never Painted Home’s Angels. The politics of household and feminised work. Presentation Proposal due. Linda Nochlin. ‘Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?’
Session 2: Field Trip: CCCB. Watch: Kimmel, Boys Will be Boys: “Deconstructing Masculinites”.
WEEK 8
Session 1: The Making of Spanish Masculinities: Gendered Spaces and cognitive privileges. Becoming-man and alternative manhood. Reversible icons. Corporate masculinity. Read: ‘Almería and the Landscapes of Cinema’.
Session 2: The (Un)making of Spanish Masculinities. Session by invited artist Antoni Hervàs. Watch: Álex de la Iglesia, 800 Bullets.
WEEK 9
Session 1: Spanish Masculinities Reconsidered: Learning From Tabernas: paella western and the archaeologies of virility. Class debate on 800 Bullets.
Session 2: Group Presentations.
WEEK 10
Session 1: Group Presentations.
Session 2: Postcolonial perspectives in a globalized iconocracy. The Discourses of the Other.
WEEK 11
Session 1: Field Trip: La Virreina. Meeting with La Virreina’s director.
Session 2: FINAL EXAM.