ARTS 250 The Art of Resistance!

African American, Latinx, Asian, Feminist, GLBT, and transnational artists and their critical art making strategies are the focus of this hybrid art making, history, and theory class. The course will focus on 20th and 21st century art movements that critically engage issues of race, gender, ethnicity, and class, like the post Watts Rebellion African American assemblagists, Southern California Latinx performance artists, "Bad Girl" feminists, and conceptual art (artists?). This course will also debate the efficacy of the body in and as critique (what does this mean...), representing politics vs. the politics of representation, and the art of identity politics vs. conceptual art strategies. The class will especially draw from art emerging from the Los Angeles context, featuring studio visits with area artists, field work at the Noah Purifoy Foundation in Joshua Tree, California, collaboration with the Wanlass Visiting Artist, and innovative non-profits like Clockshop. We will learn how artists challenging notions of race, gender, and class also shook the foundations of the art world... and the definitions of art itself.