Seminar in Modernist Art and Theory: The Bathetic and the Banal

Sometimes, since the late 19th century, artists and writers in Europe and the US have taken up the most outrageous of personae and/or the most ordinary of materials. What forms do these attractions take, and what forces might drive them? Guided by disparate thinkers such as Nietzsche, Sartre, and Arendt, we explore diverse artists such as Alfred Jarry, the Russian Eccentrics, Hugo Ball, Sophie Taeuber, Kurt Schwitters, Asger Jorn, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Carl Andre, Eva Hesse, Isa Genzken, Mike Kelley, Jeff Koons, and Rachel Harrison.