Modern art in the USA: issues and controversies of the 20th century

1990-1920: Cultural and historical context for the first twenty years

Early twentieth-century realists

The critical issues: modernism and American consciousness

New forms for a new century

Photography as art, photography as a tool for reform

Armory show, independents show of 1917, and New York Dada

The 1920s: Cultural and historical context for the Jazz Age

Machine age modernism and modernity

Cultural nationalism - defining American: the usable past, the local, the popular

Cultural primitivism - defining authenticity: the usable "other" and natural men and women

The new Negro

Artists abroad

The 1930s: Cultural and historical context for the Depression years

The Depression experience

Revolutionary theory and practice - the search for styles

Mexican artists in the United Stated

Government projects

Nationalism and racialism in the arts as issues in the 1930s

1940s to mid-1950s: Cultural and historical context for World War II and the Cold War

Critical responses: the transition to abstract expressionism and "pure" painting

New York School: voices of individual artists

The figurative artists in the postwar years

The Cold War and the arts

1955-1967: Cultural and historical context for a consumer and technological society

Assemblage, installations, happenings, events, performance

New York Pop, West Coast Funk, and Chicago "sub-Pop"

Minimal art

1968-1980: Cultural and historical context for the Vietnam War era

Dematerialization: conceptual art, systems, earth art

Realism and figuration

The Vietnam War, political art, political criticism

Black arts movement

Women's movement

1980s-1990s: Cultural and historical context for the age of Reagan and postmodernism

Exit modernism, enter postmodern critique

New painting and sculpture

Word-based, photo-based, and theory-based art

Identities unmasked, classifications resisted

Bodies reclaimed

Censorship and propaganda in art and visual culture

The construction of knowledge: museums, art history, and studio practices

Art in public spaces.