Unit of Study ARTD2002 Modern Art and the Avant-Garde (2025)

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Unit Snapshot

Unit type

UG Coursework Unit
Credit points

12
Faculty & College

Faculty of Business, Law and Arts
Placement

No

Unit description

Examines issues that are central to the origins of modern art and the avant-garde. The onset of modernity enacted radical changes in the production and interpretation of visual art. Students will explore the reasons for, and the ramifications of, these changes, and in the process will become familiar with key political and theoretical issues concerning the legacy of modernist ideologies.

Unit content

Modernity, capitalism and the avant-garde
Craft as fine art
Primitivism and colonisation
The aesthetics of abstraction
Utopian visions: art as social critique
Art and technological reproduction

Availabilities

Location	Domestic	International
Online	Term1	N/A

Learning outcomes

Unit Learning Outcomes express learning achievement in terms of what a student should know, understand and be able to do on completion of a unit. These outcomes are aligned with the graduate attributes. The unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes are also the basis of evaluating prior learning.

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

recognise the various visual languages and aesthetic philosophies of modernism

articulate relationships between the avant-garde and modernity in Western and non-Western cultures

describe the key socio-political factors that impinged upon a range of modernist art practices

demonstrate an understanding of academic writing skills, information literacy, library and online research

Teaching and assessment

Teaching method

Workshop 1 hour (Weekly)

Tutorial 2 hours (Weekly)

Assessment
Quiz	40%
Project	60%

Prescribed learning resources

Prescribed Texts

Prescribed text information is not currently available.

Prescribed Resources/Equipment

Prescribed resources/equipment information is not currently available.

Prescribed Learning Resources may change in future Teaching Periods.

Fee information

Domestic

Commonwealth Supported courses
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