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Art since 1980

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Contemporary Art, an introduction
Cold War Germany and after
Anselm Kiefer
Shulamite
Bohemia Lies by the Sea
An interview with Anselm Kiefer
Sigmar Polke, Watchtower series
Gerhard Richter
The Cage Paintings (1-6)
Uncle Rudi
Betty
September
Art in the AIDS era
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, “Untitled” (billboard of an empty bed)
Masami Teraoka, American Kabuki
Sue Coe, Aids won’t wait, the enemy is here not in Kuwait
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Horn Players
Keith Haring, Subway Drawings
Pepón Osorio, En la barberia no se llora (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop)
Post-Cultural Revolution China
Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn
The Case for Ai Weiwei
Xu Bing, Book from the Sky
Apartheid-era South Africa
Marlene Dumas, Models
Jane Alexander, Butcher Boys
William Kentridge, drawing from Tide Table (Soho in Deck Chair)
Sue Williamson, For Thirty Years Next to His Heart
Young British Artists and art as commodity
Jeff Koons, Pink Panther
The YBAs: The London-based Young British Artists
Tracey Emin, My Bed
Chris Ofili, The Holy Virgin Mary
Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
Marc Quinn, Self
Hans Haacke, Seurat’s “Les Poseuses” (small version), 1884-1975
Pictures generation and post-modern photography
Alfredo Jaar, A Logo for America
Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your gaze hits the side of my face)
Jeff Wall, A View from an Apartment
The Pictures Generation
Cindy Sherman
Untitled Film Still #21
Untitled #228
The Case for Copying
Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled (Woman Feeding Bird), from The Kitchen Table Series
Will Wilson interview about The Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange
Revisiting histories
Nari Ward, We the People (black version)
Kara Walker
Kara Walker, Darkytown Rebellion
An interview with Kara Walker
Kara Walker, A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby
Alison Saar, Topsy and the Golden Fleece
Kerry James Marshall
An interview with Kerry James Marshall about his series Mementos
Kerry James Marshall: Mastry
Clarissa Rizal, Resilience Robe
Tenzing Rigdol, Pin drop silence: Eleven-headed Avalokiteshvara
Thornton Dial, Blood and Meat: Survival For The World
Titus Kaphar, The Cost of Removal
Omar Victor Diop: Black subjects in the frame
Wendy Red Star, 1880 Crow Peace Delegation
Roger Shimomura, Diary: December 12, 1941
An interview with Fred Wilson about the conventions of museums and race
Kenseth Armstead, Surrender Yorktown 1781
Lam Tung Pang on “A day of two Suns”
Mapping and migration
Julie Mehretu, Stadia II
Doris Salcedo, Shibboleth
Raúl de Nieves, Beginning & the end neither & the otherwise betwixt & between the end is the beginning & the end
Julie Mehretu, HOWL, eon (I, II)
An interview with Alfredo Jaar
Jamie Wyeth, Kalounna in Frogtown
Borderlands
Tanya Aguiñiga, Metabolizing the Border
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Border Tuner
Postcommodity arts collective
Richard Misrach, Border Cantos
Minerva Cuevas, Crossing of the Rio Bravo
Jaime Carrejo, Border/Land
Guadalupe Maravilla, Requiem For My Border Crossing
Figuration, the body, and representation
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Stephanie Syjuco, The Visible Invisible
Renée Stout, interview about Fetish #2
Wangechi Mutu
Wangechi Mutu, Preying Mantra
Wangechi Mutu, The NewOnes, will free Us
Marina Abramović, The Artist is Present
Rineke Dijkstra, Odessa, Ukraine, August 4, 1993
An interview with Maryam Hoseini
Jordan Casteel paints her community
Luchita Hurtado’s body of work
Shirin Neshat, Rebellious Silence, Women of Allah series
Kehinde Wiley, Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps
Yinka Shonibare, The Swing (After Fragonard)
Lucian Freud, Standing by the Rags
Kiki Smith, Lying with the Wolf
Catherine Opie, Figure and Landscape series
Social practice
Guerrilla Girls, ‘You Have to Question What You See’ (interview)
Ai Wei Wei, Remembering and the Politics of Dissent
Ai Wei Wei, Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds)
Tania Bruguera, The Francis Effect
Tania Bruguera, Immigrant Movement International
Theaster Gates on collecting
Public memory and the politics of place
An-My Lê, 29 Palms
Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds, Native Hosts (Arkansas)
Nam June Paik, Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii
Do Ho Suh, Rubbing/Loving
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice
Krzysztof Wodiczko, Monument
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People)
What's in a map? Jaune Quick-To-See Smith's State Names (2000)
Graciela Iturbide, Photographing Mexico
Contemporary Native American Architecture
Mark Bradford’s 150 Portrait Tone
Landscape and ecology
Stéphane Couturier, Fenetre, Eastlake Greens, San Diego
Maya Lin, Silver Upper White River
Courtney Leonard, ARTIFICE Ellipse, 2016
Sebastião Salgado’s Kuwait
Michel Tuffery, Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000)
James Turrell, Skyspace, the way of color
Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Earth’s Creation
Roger Minick, Woman with Scarf at Inspiration Point, Yosemite National Park
Thiebaud, Ponds and Streams
Digital culture
An interview with Jamian Juliano-Villani
Meriem Bennani’s Exploded Visions
Art, Race, and the Internet: Mendi + Keith Obadike’s Black.Net.Art Actions
Assemblage and materiality
Magdalene Anyango N. Odundo, Symmetrical Reduced Black Narrow-Necked Tall Piece
Nick Cave’s “Soundsuits”
Damián Ortega, Alias
Abraham Cruzvillegas, Autoconstrucción
El Anatsui
El Anatsui, Untitled
El Anatsui, Old Man’s Cloth
Mickalene Thomas on her Materials and Artistic Influences
Zheng Chongbin on “I Look for the Sky”
An interview with artist Ogawa Machiko
Spirituality and transcendence
Mariko Mori, Pure Land
Bill Viola, The Crossing
Bruce Nauman, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths

The Case for Ai Weiwei

by The Art Assignment

Speaker: Sarah Urist Green

Additional resources:

Ai WeiWei’s website

Ai WeiWei on Art21

Cite this page as: The Art Assignment, "The Case for Ai Weiwei," in Smarthistory, August 2, 2017, accessed August 1, 2021, https://smarthistory.org/case-for-ai-weiwei/.

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A young (and ambitious) Rembrandt

Rembrandt's Self-Portrait, Age 23

Rembrandt, Self-Portrait

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Norma Jean Calderwood Director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
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