Making Sense of Abstraction: Roots, Context and Meaning

Dr Emily Christensen

5 pre-recorded lectures with 5 live Zoom seminars in the evenings over 5 weeks from Wednesday 13 September to Wednesday 11 October 2023, with an optional visit on Saturday 14 October 2023
£195 or £245 with visit

Course description

Abstract art has provoked strong reactions since it emerged in the early twentieth century. It has been derided, reviled, banned and burned. But it has also become one of the dominant and most celebrated forms of artistic expression of our time. What is abstract art? Where did it come from? What does it mean? This course will explore these questions from different angles, examining the early manifestations of European abstraction through the work of artists including Wassily Kandinsky, Hilma af Klint, Kazimir Malevich, and Piet Mondrian as well as later permutations elsewhere in the world including works by Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Saloua Raouda Choucair and Ibrahim El-Salahi. We will be examining stories of the creation of these paintings – what the artists may have intended – in the cultural and political context of their period. We will also look at how viewers responded to them and uncover stories of the unexpected, shifting meanings ascribed to the paintings by politicians and ideologues as the twentieth century progressed. The lectures will focus more on broad themes, while the discussions will allow close looking at and discussion of individual works. In addition to the on-line lectures and discussions, there will be an optional in-person visit to Tate Modern to look at some of the works covered in the course.