Course Syllabus

WOMEN, ART, and IDENTITY

Course Content

This course is an investigation of women artists from a wide geographical selection and their impact on early modern and contemporary culture. Significant female artists from the time of the Impressionists to the present will be analyzed. Shifting female identities in art will be discussed and related to relevant social and art historical contexts, including a debate on women in the context of institutional practices.

The analysis of individual artistic achievements in a variety of media will be supported by the respective literature, providing a historical, theoretical and critical background.

Field studies to significant museums and contemporary exhibitions in the Copenhagen area form an essential part of this course. The visits require active student participation (e.g. student presentations and group work).

Instructor

Andrea Homann, Dipl.-Ing. (Apparel Engineering/Fashion Design, FH Mönchengladbach, 1989). 1989-1990 Designer at Westfalenstoffe, Münster/Germany, 1990-1993, Educator at the Museum of Contemporay Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. Since 1994, Educator at the Danish National Gallery (Statens Museum for Kunst). With DIS since 1997.

Consultation: Preferably after class

Objectives

• To gain knowledge of the primary manifestations of women’s art from the late 19^th century to the present
• To acquire the ability to formally analyze and discuss specific art works and related historical and cultural parameters
• To enable students to critically evaluate the contexts of artistic practice, with a special focus on gender and identity
• To utilize museums and art galleries in Copenhagen as sites for experiential learning
• To elaborate specific topics from the period in oral and written assignments

Course Requirements

• Attendance and active participation in class discussions and during museum visits, including oral presentations
• Written assignments: Exhibition review, research paper, discussion posts

To be eligible for a passing grade in this class you must complete all of the assigned work.

Classroom Etiquette

• Mobile Phones and other electronic devices should be turned off and stored away
• Students should refrain from all other computer activities, except during group work assignments
• this course emphasizes individual learning and critical thinking, consequently the use of AI writing tools is not allowed

Course Evaluation

Assignment	Percent
Research Paper (8 pages)	30%
Exhibition Review (5 pages)	20%
Oral Presentation in Class	20%
Active Class Participation, including discussion posts and debates	30%

Field Studies 

GL Strand, Gl Strand 48, 1202 KBH H

Copenhagen Contemporary, Refshalevej 173A, 1432 KBH K

Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Kongens Nytorv 1, 1050 KBH K

Den Hirschsprungske Samling, Stockholmsgade 20, 2100 KBH 

Nordatlantens Brygge, Strandgade 91, 1401KBH

 

Required Reading

Block, Rebecca and Lynda Hoffman-Jeep: Fashioning National Identity: Frida Kahlo in “Gringolandia”, Women’s Art Journal, vol.19, No.2, 1998/99, pp. 8-12 (available on Canvas). 

Blocker, Jane: Exile in Jane Blocker, Where is Ana Mendieta? Identity, Performativity and Exile. Durham-London: Duke University Press, 1999.

Biesenbach, Klaus: Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present. The Artist was Present. The Artist will be Present, in Klaus Biesenbach: Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present. New York, MOMA, 2010 .

Bishop, Claire: Installation Art and Experience in Claire Bishop, Installation Art: A Critical History. London, Tate Publishing, 2005. pp. 6, 8, 10, 11, 13.

Breuning, Malene: A Room of One’s Own. The Intimate Quality of Anna Ancher,s Portraits and Interiors in: I am Anna, A Hommage to Anna Ancher. Skagens Museum, 2009.

Burke, Carolyn: Framing a Life: Lee Miller, in Roland Penrose: The Surrealist and the Photographer, The Trustees of the National Gallery of Scotland, 2001, p.127-133

Caws, Mary Ann, Rudolf E. Kuenzli and Gwen Raaberg (eds.): Surrealism and Women, MIT Press, Cambridge MAss. and London, 1991, pp1-26.

Danbolt, Mathias: Striking Reverberations. Beating back the Unfinished History of the Colonial Aesthetic with Jeanette Ehlers´ Whip it Good, in Lotte Løvholm (ed.): Say it Loud, Nemo, Copenhagen, 2016, pp. 2-9.

Danto Arthur C. and Shirin Neshat: Shirin Neshat , Bomb, No. 73, New Art Publications, Fall 2000, pp. 60-67.

Elwes, Catherine: Introduction, Video Art: A Guided Tour, I.B.Tauris, London, 2005, p.1-20.

Goldberg, RoseLee, The First Decade of the New Century 2001-2010, in Performance Art, From futurism to the Present, Thames and Hudson, London, 2011. Pp. 226-249.

Gördüren, Petra: “Sophie Calle, The Shadow (Detective),” in CTRL [SPACE] Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother, ed. by Thomas Y. Levin, Ursula Frohne and Peter Weibel, Karlsruhe: ZKM Center for Art and Media/Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: MIT Press, 2002, pp. 410–415.

Grimberg, Salomon: Frida Kahlo’s Still Lifes: “I Paint Flowers So They Will Not Die”, Women’s Art Journal, Vol 25, No.2, Woman’s Art Iinc, 2004-2005, pp. 25-30.

Helland, Janice: Aztec Imagery in Frida Kahlo’s Paintings: Indigenity and Political Commitment, Woman’s Art Journal, Vol. 11, No.2, Woman’s Art Inc., 1990-1991, pp. 8-13.

Jalving, Camilla:Between Visibility and Invisibility, 2010 http://trinesondergaard.com/writings/between-visibility-and-invisibility/

Kleemann Jessie and Helle Fagralid: Which Art is Ours? in Pia Arke, Louisiana Museum, 2021

Kotik, Charlotta, The Locus of Memory: An Introduction to the Work of Louise Bourgeois, in Louise Bourgeois, The Locus of Memory. New York: The Brooklyn Museum, 1994, pp. 13,16-19, 22-27.

Körber, Lill-Ann: Figurations of the Hybrid, Julie Edel Hardenbergs Visions of Post-Colonial Greenland, in Globalizing Art, Aarhus University Press, 2011, pp. 183-203.

La Cour, Astrid: Disappearing into the Past: www.astridkrusejensen.com/texts_and_reviews/index.php?Disappearing_into_the_past_By_Astrid_la_Cour

Lavin, Maude: Hanna Höch’s From an Ethnographic Museum. In: Sawelson-Gorse, Naomi: Women in Dada: essays on Sex, Gender and Identity. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998, pp. 330-359. 

Mulvey, Laura: Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema in Art in Theory, 1900-2000. An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 982-989.

Nochlin, Linda: Why have there been no great women artists? In: Amelia Jones (ed.): The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. London-New York, Routledge, 2003, pp. 229-233.

Nochlin, Linda: Why have there been no great women artists? Thirty Years After, in Women Artists, The Linda Nochlin Reader, London, Thames and Hudson, 2015, pp.311-321.

Pollock, Griselda: Modernity and the Spaces of Feminity. In Vision and Difference, New York: Routledge, 1988, pp. 50-90.

Radycki, Diane, Pictures of Flesh: Modersohn Becker and the Nude, Women’s Art Journal Fall/Winter 2009.

Ravenal, John B.: Shirin Neshat:Double Vision, in Norma Broude, Reclaiming Female Agency, Feminist Art History after Postmodernism, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2005, pp. 447-451, 453-458.

Reilly, Maura: Toward Transnational Feminisms, in Global Feminisms – New Directions in Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum, Merell Publishers, 2007, pp.15-45.

Reilly, Maura: Taking the Measure of Sexism, Facts, Figures and Fixes, in Artnews, May 2015 

Sandbye, Mette: I am Nothing (Weekendavisen, 2010) http://www.tinaenghoff.com/writings.php?case_id=24

Salto, Iben: The Quiet Diversity , Milik Publishing, 2005

Satrapi, Marjane, Persepolis, London, Jonathan Cape, 2006, pp. 294-300.

Søndergaard, Sidsel Maria and Tea Baark Mairey: Like a Quivering Between Things in Søndergaard, Sidsel Maria (ed.): Women in Impressionism, From Mythical Feminine to Modern Woman. Milan: Skira, 2006, pp. 225-273, 228, 230, 234, 235-240, 246-48, 256-258, 264-271.

The Black Diamond/The National Photomuseum Exhibition Guide: Lee Miller, Photographer, Icon, Surrealist, 2022

von Hantelmann, Dorothea: The Experiental Turn, in On Performativity, ed. by Elizabeth Carpenter, Vol 1 of Living Collections Catalogue, Minneapolis, Walker Art Center2014.

https://walkerart.org/collections/publications/performativity/experiential-turn

Wagstaff, Sheena: Uncharted Territory: New Perspectives in the Art of Mona Hatoum, in Said, Edward and sheena Wagstaff: The Entire World as a Foreign Land London, Tate Publishing, 2000.

Williams, Judith: Images of Woman, The Photography of Cindy Sherman in Hilary Robinson: Feminism – Art-Theory: an Anthology 1968-2000, Oxford:Blackwell, 2000 pp. 453-459.

Academic Regulations  

Please make sure to read the Academic Regulations on the DIS website. There you will find regulations on:

• Course Enrollment and Grading
• Academic Expectations and Honor Code

 

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