Final Syllabus
Emir Kusturica, Film still from Underground, 1995
Modern Frames: European Art and Cinema
Fall 2016
Mondays and Thursdays, 8:30-9:50,
European Humanities – 3 Credit Core Class
Study Tour: Czech Republic
Related Disciplines: Film Studies. Visual Arts. Art History.
Location: Vestergade 7-31
Description of course
From the great auteurs in European filmmaking to the provocateurs of the contemporary art scene,
this course examines artistic expression in European cinema and visual arts. What role do
independent film and art movements play in 20th- and 21st-century Europe? How are aesthetics
influenced by the changing political landscape? How are intellectuals and artists working during
and after Socialism? When do visual arts go beyond consumerism? We will do a case study of
subversive art in post-communist Prague and meet with Danish directors to discuss film in the latecapitalist era.
Modern Frames: European Art and Cinema | DIS – Study Abroad in Scandinavia
Related Disciplines: Film Studies, Visual Arts, Art History, Media Studies
Final Syllabus
Core Course Week including Short Study Tour
The theme of the core course week is Nordic Visual Arts. We start out with a two-day seminar in
Copenhagen, focusing on the role of art and cinema in the Nordic countries. The week continues
with a three-day study tour to Western Denmark, where we travel to a relevant film college and
AROS, Museum of Modern Art and Øst for Paradis, Art House Movie Theatre in Aarhus.
The Long Tour Destinations
Prague
Prague and its Gothic cityscape is an established home for leading artists, film directors, and
intellectuals, and the city has a lively artistic subculture. We will utilize Post-communist Prague as
a case study to identify subversive artistic expression in European cinema and visual arts, and
examine the role of independent film and art movements in 20th and 21st century Europe during
visits to relevant institutions, e.g. DOX Center for Contemporay Art, The Film Department at
The Charles University, and lectures and discussions with Filip Remunda, director of Czech
Dream and contemporary local artists.
Vienna
Vienna offers an opportunity to interpret the layers of history, from the Baroque city created during
the Habsburg Empire to Viennese Actionism. How has radical art undermined and questioned the
former imperial city and helped to manifest Vienna as a significant place for contemporary culture
in Central Europe? We will explore the relations of Austria and the Czech Republic through the
lense of selected artists, such as Egon Schiele and Valie Export.
Instructors
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.
Morten Egholm
Ph. D., Film Studies, University of Copenhagen, 2009. Cand. mag., Scandinavian Studies, Film
and Media Theory, University of Copenhagen, 1997. Associate professor, Danish Language,
Literature and Culture, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 2002-2006. Has written several
articles in Danish, English and Dutch on film history, Danish literature, Danish mentality, and
Danish TV series. Editor of the film journal Kosmorama 2010-15. With DIS since 2008, since
January 2012 as full time faculty.
DIS Contacts:
Karen Søilen, European Humanities Assistant Program Director
Matt Kelley, European Humanities Program Assistant
Modern Frames: European Art and Cinema | DIS – Study Abroad in Scandinavia
Related Disciplines: Film Studies, Visual Arts, Art History, Media Studies
Final Syllabus
Course Objectives
 Gain knowledge of the varied manifestations and historical development of modern and
contemporary art and film;
 Critically evaluate visual culture in the context of current Nordic and larger European
issues;
 Acquire the ability to formally analyze and discuss specific works and different media;
 Practice critical discourse during study tours and classroom sessions;
 Enable students in written and oral assignments to discuss and elaborate on the visual
qualities and contexts of artistic practice;
Course Format
This section will meet 18 times during the semester and additional educational time will take place
as students travel with faculty through Denmark and Europe. The 18 sessions will be a mix of
classroom teaching, field studies to museums and film screenings.
Field studies
Visits to contemporary art institutions, artist studios and film screenings.
Course Requirements
Each student will be assigned a time to give an oral presentation to the class while on the long
study tour that will reflect a particular aspect or academic interest related to the tour destination.
Each student will produce a longer research paper that focuses on an individually developed topic
that relates closely to the course and is handed in at the end of the semester.
A work analysis paper during core class week.
In class exam with factual and short essay analytical questions.
To be eligible for a passing grade in this class you must complete all of the assigned work.
Grade Components
Midterm exam:
Oral presentation:
Short paper:
Research paper:
Participation grade:
25%
15%
15%
30%
15%
Course Topics
Rethink Relations – Visual Arts beyond the Frame of Tradition
Based on a selection of case studies, such as Dogma films and the Danish artists collective
Superflex, we will both analyze and critically evaluate how artists are expanding the traditional use
of media and how they develop artistic expression beyond mainstream in Denmark and other
Nordic countries.
Modern Frames – The Changing Contexts of the Avant-Garde
What happens to the realist tradition when European artists visualize the absurd and create works
that deliberately explore the world beyond reason? We will examine movements from the historical
avant-garde between the two world wars, such as Expressionism, Dada, Russian Constructivism,
Surrealism and compare them to contemporary art and film.
Modern Frames: European Art and Cinema | DIS – Study Abroad in Scandinavia
Related Disciplines: Film Studies, Visual Arts, Art History, Media Studies
Final Syllabus
Eastern European Culture during and after Communism
How is artistic production affected by a strict regime of political ideology and repression and what
changes can be observed after the wall came down and the countries of the East were reshaped
with new borders? We will focus on the Czech Republic to prepare for the long study tour.
Whose art is it? – Visual Culture in Urban Contexts
How does consumerism shape contemporary visual culture? How do artists intervene in public
spaces today? What is subversive art and how does it relate to cultural institutions?
Film Viewings
Please note that it is mandatory to watch each film before the relevant class. Below you will find a
schedule of film viewings that allows you the opportunity to view the films together as a class – on
a (relatively) big screen. If, for some reason, you are unable to attend a viewing or would like to
see a particular film again, it will be available on reserve in a specific semester shelf at the Library
(ask one of the librarians). Keep in mind that these films act as the texts of this course and it is
therefore just as necessary to watch each film attentively (i.e. take notes) before the class sessions
in which it will be discussed.
Each film will be screened once, at 4.15 pm on the given date in The DIS Movie Theatre next to the
library, in Vestergade 10A, second floor (The DIS Movie Theatre is ours each Tuesday and Friday
4-6 pm):
Viewing Dates:
Film:
Friday, August, 26
The Celebration
Tuesday, September, 6
Nosferatu + An Andalusian Dog
CORE COURSE WEEK: Monday, September, 12
The Passion of Joan of Arc + Out of Love
CORE COURSE WEEK, Friday, September, 16
Århus By Night
Tuesday, September, 20
Closely Observed Trains
Tuesday, October, 4 (NOTE: approx. 165 min.)
Underground
Friday, October, 14
Nordrand
Tuesday, October, 18
Alois Nebel
Tuesday, October, 25
Czech Dream
Tuesday, November, 8
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
Required Reading
1. Course Binder
2. Gerad Mast and Bruce F. Kawin, A Short History of the Movies, Pearson, 2010
3. Selected essays, available on canvas
Modern Frames: European Art and Cinema | DIS – Study Abroad in Scandinavia
Related Disciplines: Film Studies, Visual Arts, Art History, Media Studies
Final Syllabus
DETAILED SCHEDULE:
Session 1
Thursday, August 25
Introduction to the course
A discussion of Nordic visual culture will be exemplified by:
Film clip: Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)
Nordic Photography: Astrid Kruse Jensen
Reading:
David Bordwell: The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice (1979)
Astrid La Cour, Disappearing into the Past (on the photography of Astrid Kruse
Jensen, available on canvas)
Session 2
Monday, August 29
What is art house cinema in Europe? How does it distance itself to mainstream cinema?
Danish Dogma 95 as example
Film: The Celebration/Festen (Thomas Vinterberg, 1998, 101 minutes)
Readings:
Peter Schepelern: After The Celebration: Looking back on Dogme (2013)
Gilles Deleuze: Preface to the English Edition, and Beyond the Movement-Image
(1986)
Session 3
Thursday, September 1
Sensing Place: Installation Art by Olafur Eliasson
Readings:
Ulla Angkjær Jørgensen and Bodil Stavning Thomsen, The Body as ”The Place of
Passage”, On Spatial Construction of Time in Olafur Eliasson’s Installations, in
Globalizing Art, pp. 87-104, Aarhus University Press, 2011
http://www.olafureliasson.net/publications/download_texts/Your_engagement_has_consequences.pdf
Recommended Reading:
Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another – Notes on Site- Specificity, October, vol.80,
spring 1997, pp85-110 (on canvas)
Session 4
Monday, September 5
Collaborative Art
Negotiating the contexts and social relevance of contemporary Danish art
We will discuss the projects of the Copenhagen artist collective SUPERFLEX and examples
of art in public places.
Reading:
Claire Bishop, The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents, Artforum,
February2006, p.178-183 (on canvas)
http://superflex.net/tools/superkilen
http://superflex.net/texts/superflexs_tools
Recommended Reading:
Carsten Stage, Beyond Predatory Nationalism , in Globalizing Art, Aarhus University
Press, 2011
Modern Frames: European Art and Cinema | DIS – Study Abroad in Scandinavia
Related Disciplines: Film Studies, Visual Arts, Art History, Media Studies
Final Syllabus
Session 5
Thursday, September 8
European film modernism in its early stages: Expressionism and Surrealism
Films: Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922, 97 minutes)
An Andalusian Dog (Luis Bunuel, 1928, 17 minutes)
Reading:
Mast & Kawin: A Short History of The Movies (2011), p. 169-186; p. 233-241
CORE COURSE WEEK:
Session 6
Monday, September 12
Takes place in The DIS Movie Theatre
9.00-12.00: Session on Carl Th. Dreyer (1889-1968), Cubism, and avant-garde of the 1920’s
Watching The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1928, 82 minutes), including
introduction to and discussion of the film
Reading: Drum & Drum: Chapter 7: Greatness and Tragedy
12.00-12.10: Break
12.10-12.50: Watching the art house documentary Out of Love (Birgitte Stærmose, 2009, 29
minutes)
12.50-13.45: Lunch Break
13.45-15.15: Visit from and Q&A with Birgitte Stærmose, the director of Out of Love
Session 7
Tuesday, September, 13, 9:30 – 15:00
1. Introduction to Short Study Tour and the field study
2. Field study: The National Photomuseum at The Royal Library
We Built A House
Julie Boserup and Søren Lose
Reading:
http://www.sorenlose.dk/Relicts
Bodil, Marie Stavning Thomsen: Spatializing Time – On the Creation of allegoric,
global Connections between Local and Auratic Sites in Globalizing Art , p.69-85 (on
canvas)
SEPTEMBER 14-16: SHORT STUDY TOUR
Monday, September 19
No Class
Session 8
Thursday, September 22
The Czech New Wave in the 1960s.
Film: Closely Observed Trains (Jiri Menzel, 1966, 95 minutes)
Readings:
Peter Hames: The Czechoslovak New Wave (2005), p.1-9; p. 151-166
Peter Hames: Czech and Slovak Cinema (2010), p. 1-13
Adam Bingham: Jiri Menzel in Directory of World Cinema: East Europe (2011)
Mast & Kawin (2011), p.436-440
PAPER DUE
Modern Frames: European Art and Cinema | DIS – Study Abroad in Scandinavia
Related Disciplines: Film Studies, Visual Arts, Art History, Media Studies
Final Syllabus
Session 9
Monday, September 26
Distorted Bodies: Egon Schiele and Vienna Actionism
Readings:
Alessandra Comini, Egon Schiele: Redefining Portraiture in the Age of Angst, in Egon
Schiele Portraits, Prestel, 2014, pp.15-38
http://hyperallergic.com/148596/blood-and-soil-vienna-actionisms-dangerous-game/
Michaela Pöschl, The Truth of the Bodies, in Amor, Psyche, Action –Vienna,Dox,
Prague, 2012, p.261-273
Session 10
Thursday, September 29
Czech Avant-Garde: Cubism and Surrealism
Readings: Miroslav Lamac, Czech Cubism: Points of Departure and Resolution, 1990 (on
blackboard)
Czech Surrealism:
http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/papersofsurrealism/journal3/acrobat_files/lenka.pd
f
Art of the Avant-Gardes, #14 Surrealism, 1924-29 (available on blackboard)
http://www.ubu.com/papers/breton_surrealism_manifesto.html
Recommended Reading:
Papers of Surrealism, Josef Sudek,
http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/papersofsurrealism/journal3/acrobat_files/Lahoda_article.pdf
Tate papers, Emila Medkova
http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/emila-medkova-magic-despair
Session 11
Monday, October 3
The Visual Culture of Socialism
How does art reflect and depict social and political changes?
Readings:
Christina Lodder, Soviet Constructivism, in Steve Edwards and Paul Wood (eds.): Art
of the Avant-Gardes. Yale University Press, 2004, p. 358-393.
Misko Suvkovic, Art as a Political Machine in,Ales Erjavec, Postmodern and
Postsocialist Condition, Politicized Art under Late Socialism,Berkely, University of
California Press,2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/world/europe/05cerny.html?_r=0 (David Cerny)
http://monoskop.org/Milan_Kn%C3%AD%C5%BE%C3%A1k (Milan Knizak)
Boris Groys, Beyond Diversity,Cultural Studies and its Post-Communist Other, Boris
Groys, in Art Power, MIT Press, Canbridge, 2008, p149-163
Modern Frames: European Art and Cinema | DIS – Study Abroad in Scandinavia
Related Disciplines: Film Studies, Visual Arts, Art History, Media Studies
Final Syllabus
Session 12
Thursday, October 6
Modern surrealism. Eastern European Modernism: Emir Kusturica as example.
Film: Underground (Emir Kusturica, 1995, 165 min.)
Readings:
Sergio Bertellini: Disconnection: Once Upon a Time There Was a Country
Mast & Kawin (2011), p.444-446
LONG STUDY TOUR BREAK
Session 13
Monday, October 17
New Austrian Cinema. The multiprotagonist film.
Film: Nordrand (Barbara Albert, 1999, 106 minutes)
Readings:
Robert von Dassanowsky & Oliver C. Speck: New Austrian Film: The Nonexceptional Exception
Wednesday, October 19th, 9:00 – 12:30
Jacob A. Riis – The Ideal American Citizen
Field Study to GL Strand
Readings:
http://en.glstrand.dk/media/50497/Pressemeddelelse-Riis_ENG.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/23/arts/design/jacob-riis-photographs-still-revealingnew-yorks-other-half.html?_r=0
Session 14
Thursday, October 20
Czech Animation Film
Film: Alois Nebel (Tomáš Luňák, 2011, 84 minutes)
Readings:
Peter Hames: Czech and Slovak Cinema, chapter 10: Animation
Press material for the film (on Canvas)
Session 15
Monday, October 24
MIDTERM IN CLASS, 80 minutes
Session 16
Thursday, October 27
INTRO TO LONG TOUR
Consumerism in Capitalist Czech Republic
Film: Czech Dream (Vit Klusak & Filip Remunda, 2004, 90 minutes)
LONG STUDY TOUR, Prague and Vienna: 30. – 4. November
Modern Frames: European Art and Cinema | DIS – Study Abroad in Scandinavia
Related Disciplines: Film Studies, Visual Arts, Art History, Media Studies
Final Syllabus
Session 17
Monday, November 7
Debriefing of the Long Study Tour
Whose art is it?
Readings:
Terry Smith, Our Contemporaneity, in Contemporary Art 1989 to the Present, Wiley
Blackwell, 2013
Maria Lind and Liam Gillick, Participation, in Contemporary Art 1989 to the Present,
Wiley Blackwell, 2013
Session 18
Thursday, November 10
Modern Eastern European Film. The Romanian New Wave
Film: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007, 115 minutes)
Reading:
Dominique Nasta: Contemporary Romanian Cinema: The History of an Unexpected
Miracle, p.181-200
Wednesday, December 7th, 15:00- 20:00
CONCLUDING PROGRAM SESSION AND SOCIAL- Attendance Mandatory
PAPER DUE
Modern Frames: European Art and Cinema | DIS – Study Abroad in Scandinavia
Related Disciplines: Film Studies, Visual Arts, Art History, Media Studies