Curated Guides > Syllabus > Global Contemporary Art Syllabus
Global Contemporary Art Syllabus
This 13-unit course provides an introduction to contemporary art from a global perspective. Thematic units on topics shared by many international artists (such as gender, ecology, and memory) are interspersed with regional spotlights that highlight more local styles, issues, and (art) histories.
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Collapse AllWe know you’re wondering: What on earth is Postmodern Art? This introductory unit provides an overview of some of the key concepts that have defined global art since 1980: pastiche and stylistic eclecticism, appropriation or copying, and the expansion of art history to include multiple perspectives and positionalities.
Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962, synthetic polymer on 32 canvases, each 20 x 16 inches (The Museum of Modern Art, New York)
- Introduction
- Contemporary art, an introduction
- Postmodernism
- Pastiche, humor, and pop culture critique
- Robert Colescott, I Gets a Thrill Too When I Sees De Koo
- Ellen Gallagher: Cutting
- Betye Saar, Liberation of Aunt Jemima
- New positionalities
- Identity Politics: From the Margins to the Mainstream
- An interview with Fred Wilson about the conventions of museums and race
- Guerrilla Girls, ‘You Have to Question What You See’ (interview)
- Jenny Holzer, Inflammatory Essays and All Fall
- Art and appropriation
- The Pictures Generation
- The Case for Copying
- Harry Gamboa Jr., À la Mode, from the Asco era
- How and why have postmodern and contemporary artists challenged the value of artistic originality?
- How and why is “copying” a form of art?
- What perspectives have been traditionally absent in art history?
- What makes “contemporary art” different from “modern art”?
- How have artists used humor to remark on difficult subjects?
- postmodernism
- contemporary art
- pastiche
- pop culture
- appropriation
- Pictures Generation
- institutional critique
- identity politics
Key Questions
Key Terms
Since its establishment centuries ago, the discipline of art history and its canon (works deemed especially important and influential) has reflected a strongly Eurocentric and patriarchal bias: its protagonists were white, male, and upper-class, and anyone else was seen as outsider or muse. Determined to challenge the field’s elitism, the contemporary artists in this unit exploded the dusty canon from within: appropriating European masterworks so as to expand the possibilities for representation, or celebrating their transnational experiences.
Kerry James Marshall, Untitled (Painter), 2009, acrylic on PVC panel, 113.3 x 109.5 x 9.8 cm (Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago) © Kerry James Marshall
- Introduction
- Kerry James Marshall: Mastry
- Is there a difference between art and craft?
- The Black Atlantic: What is the Black Atlantic?
- Interventions into art history
- Kehinde Wiley, Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps
- Mickalene Thomas on her Materials and Artistic Influences
- Titus Kaphar, The Cost of Removal
- Chris Ofili, The Holy Virgin Mary
- Yinka Shonibare, The Swing (After Fragonard)
- Global vanguards
- Rina Banerjee, commerce out of the Earth
- El Anatsui, Old Man’s Cloth
- Julie Mehretu, Stadia II
- Suchitra Mattai, Exodus
- Shahzia Sikander, The Last Post
- How are contemporary artists challenging Eurocentrism in art history?
- What new perspectives are gained by introducing craft, folk art, and “low art” materials into the field of “high art”?
- How does Kehinde Wiley hope his sitters will feel through the process of painting their portrait?
- What does Yinka Shonibare MBE want to achieve when he challenges the “authenticity” of Dutch wax textiles? What does “authenticity” mean in art and culture?
- How do the choices of materials and symbols in works by Shahzia Sikander, Yinka Shonibare MBE, El Anatsui, Rina Banerjee and Suchitra Mattai explore past histories of trade and colonialism?
- What is the Black Atlantic and what does it mean for contemporary Black artists across the world?
- The Black Atlantic
- migration
- folk art
- craft
- equestrian portraiture
- Dutch wax fabric
- batik
- East India Company
- cosmopolitanism
Key Questions
Key Terms
This regional spotlight focuses on contemporary artists from China, Japan, and Korea through a range of themes at the intersection of local and global perspectives. It covers Chinese art in the period following the fall of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, artistic responses to rapid urbanization and global commerce, and aesthetic or conceptual strategies rooted in Eastern spirituality.
Liu Chunhua, Chairman Mao en Route to Anyuan, 1967, oil on canvas
- Regional context
- Liu Chunhua, Chairman Mao en Route to Anyuan
- Shiraga Kazuo, Challenging Mud (Doro ni idomu)
- Song Su-Nam, Summer Trees
- China after Mao
- Destruction as Preservation: Ai Weiwei’s Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn
- Xu Bing, Book from the Sky
- Cai Guo-Qiang, Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard
- Urbanization and consumerism
- Xu Zhen – ‘Artists Change the Way People Think’
- Song Dong, Waste Not
- Abstraction and transcendence
- Motoi Yamamoto, Floating Garden
- Mariko Mori, Pure Land
- Zheng Chongbin on “I Look for the Sky”
- Do Ho Suh, Rubbing/Loving
- Is Ai Weiwei’s act of dropping the Han Dynasty Urn an act of destruction or revitalization?
- How did the Chinese Cultural Revolution impact the role of the artist in Chinese society, and how has this role changed today?
- What forms of text and calligraphic art are referenced in Xu Bing’s Book from the Sky? Why did he choose to make his text illegible?
- What is Motoi Yamamoto trying to express about the nature of memory?
- What aspects of Buddhist and Shinto spirituality are expressed in Mariko Mori’s Pure Land?
- How are contemporary East Asian artists combining local histories with references to globalization? Choose one of the artists above in your response.
- Cultural Revolution
- propaganda
- Gutai Group
- digital art
- installation art
- rubbing
- Re-education
- Shinto
- bodhisattva
Key Questions
Key Terms
Body politics refers to the way in which our bodies and unique positionalities intersect with a range of collective or societal issues, such as labor, policing, and civil rights. In this unit, students will learn about how contemporary artists shed light on what makes different bodies hypervisible or invisible in today’s society, through focus on experiences such as surveillance and stereotypes, or through artistic explorations of the body’s physical nature.
Catherine Opie, Self-Portrait/Cutting, 1993, chromogenic print, 40 x 30 inches (Guggenheim)
- Gender and sexuality
- Catherine Opie, Self-Portrait/Cutting
- David Wojnarowicz, Untitled (One Day This Kid . . .)
- Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #21
- How did Lucian Freud present queer and marginalized bodies?
- Surveillance and stereotype
- Linda Vallejo, The Brown Dot Project
- Pepón Osorio, En la barbería no se llora (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop)
- Kara Walker, Darkytown Rebellion
- Renée Stout, interview about Fetish #2
- Visceral bodies
- Wangechi Mutu, Preying Mantra
- Ilana Savdie, Thirty-Seven Counts and Trismus
- Kiki Smith, Lying with the Wolf
- Andres Serrano, Piss Christ
- In what ways might Catherine Opie’s Self Portrait/Cutting be an empowering image?
- What strategies do LGBTQ+ artists use to make their identities and stories visible?
- Why does Linda Vallejo reference statistics about Latinx populations in her artistic practice?
- What is Pepón Osorio trying to say about masculinity in the Nuyorican and Latino communities?
- Kara Walker’s work makes a difficult history more present for contemporary viewers. What could be her motivation for doing this?
- What do you think Kara Walker means when she says “I’m not making work about reality; I’m making work about images”?
- Why does Kiki Smith present the body as “abject”? What was your first response to some of the images of her work?
- body politics
- stereotype
- HIV/AIDS
- anti-essentialism
- Chicanx/Latinx
- Nuyorican
- machismo
- antebellum
- silhouette
- abject
- culture war(s)
Key Questions
Key Terms
This regional spotlight unit focuses on contemporary artists from West Asia and North Africa, a vastly diverse region that is broadly connected through histories of Islamic cultural influence. Students will learn about how artists take inspiration from artistic and craft traditions like calligraphy, humanize narratives of mass-migration, and respond to conditions of conflict that have impacted parts of the region in recent decades.
Fahrelnissa Zeid, My Hell, 1951, oil on canvas, 205 x 528 cm © Fahrelnissa Zeid
- Regional context
- Fahrelnissa Zeid – ‘She Was the East and the West’
- Mahmoud Hammad, Arabic Writing no. 11
- Migration stories
- Yto Barrada, Ceuta Border, Illegally Crossing the Border into the Spanish Enclave of Ceuta, Tangier
- Zineb Sedira – ‘The Personal is Political’
- Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist (Room F, section 1, Northwest Palace of Nimrud)
- Muriel Hasbun, Todos los santos (Volcán de Izalco, amén)
- Shahzia Sikander, Pleasure Pillars
- Post/Conflict voices
- Bahman Mohassess, Minotaur
- Lida Abdul – ‘A Beautiful Encounter With Chance’
- Mona Hatoum – ‘Nothing Is a Finished Project’
- Adel Abidin, Memorial
- How do Mahmoud Hammad, Zineb Sedira, and Shirin Neshat approach questions of legibility and translation in different ways?
- What are the main symbols that Shirin Neshat uses in her Women of Allah series, and what ideas do they stand in for?
- What is the relationship between museums and migration, according to Michael Rakowitz?
- How have artists from West Asia and North Africa engaged with themes of memory and memorials?
- How have artists Yto Barrada, Michael Rakowitz, and Shirin Neshat navigated the boundaries between their cultures of origin and the U.S. or Europe?
- What can we learn about diaspora through Zineb Sedira, Mona Hatoum, or Muriel Hasbun’s work?
- Islamic Revolution (Iran)
- chador
- orientalism
- calligraphy
- Operation Desert Storm
- occupation
- extraction
- bas-relief
- Farhud
- Assyrian art
- Strait of Gibraltar
- islamophobia
Key Questions
Key Terms
Art has always been used to preserve our histories and memories for posterity – but whose perspectives are represented, and what if there are multiple sides to a story? This unit focuses on contemporary artists who seek to commemorate collective experiences while also making space for memories that are personal, unresolved, contradictory, or otherwise not acknowledged. In turn, they critique our belief in the fixity or truth value of official history and archives.
Anselm Kiefer, Shulamite, 1983, oil, emulsion, woodcut, shellac, acrylic, and straw on canvas, 213 x 145" / 541 x 368.3 cm (Doris and Donald Fisher Collection) © Anselm Kiefer, courtesy of the artist
- Memory and memorials
- Anselm Kiefer, Shulamite
- Sigmar Polke, Watchtower series
- An-My Lê, 29 Palms
- Lares Feliciano, Memory Mirror installation
- Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- Doris Salcedo, Shibboleth
- Theaster Gates, In Case of Race Riot II
- Critiquing the archive
- Christian Boltanski, Personnes, 2010
- Yee I-Lann, Picturing Power #6…
- William Kentridge, drawing from Tide Table (Soho in Deck Chair)
- Sue Williamson, For Thirty Years Next to His Heart
- Will Wilson, Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange
- How do Anselm Kiefer, Christian Boltanski, and Sigmar Polke try to deal with lingering collective emotions and wounds in postwar Germany in different ways?
- What aspects of Maya Lin’s design for the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial were controversial, and why?
- How do An-My Lê’s and William Kentridge’s works make connections between landscape and histories of conflict?
- What purpose does repetition serve in Sue Williamson’s For Thirty Years Next to His Heart?
- How have artists dealt with absences in official or national archives?
- memorial
- monument
- anti- or counter-monument
- apartheid
- passbook
- World War II/Postwar
- Holocaust
- Vietnam War
- race riot
- salvage
Key Questions
Key Terms
This regional spotlight focuses on contemporary artists from sub-Saharan Africa, whose practices celebrate freedom and cultural heritage while shedding light on post-colonial, post-apartheid, and diasporic experiences. These artists challenge stereotypes about Africa, revise and reimagine traditional forms of craft such as textile, ceramics, and funerary arts, and document their everyday lives using studio and documentary photography.
Equestrian Oba and Attendants, 1550–1680, Nigeria, Court of Benin, Edo peoples, brass, 49.5 x 41.9 x 11.4 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
- Regional context
- Africa historical overview: 1600s–present
- Uche Okeke
- The story of Ernest Cole, a black photographer in South Africa during apartheid
- Skunder Boghossian, Night Flight of Dread and Delight
- Reimagining art and heritage
- Abdoulaye Ndoye, Ahmed Baba
- Magdalene Odundo, Untitled (Vessel)
- Paa Joe, Coffin in the Form of a Nike Sneaker
- El Anatsui, Untitled
- Malick Sidibé, Vues de dos
- Freedom and liberation
- Omar Victor Diop: Black subjects in the frame
- Santu Mofokeng, Train Churches
- Wangechi Mutu, The NewOnes, will free Us
- How did artists like Uche Okeke respond to political independence? What was the impact of European colonization on African societies and cultures?
- What was the situation faced by Black South African artists under apartheid?
- How does Magdalene Anyango Odundo’s work honor both African and global techniques and traditions?
- How do El Anatsui’s and Paa Joe’s work reflect different ideas around commodities and consumerism?
- What different approaches to photography are seen in the work of Omar Viktor Diop, Santu Mofokeng, and Malick Sidibé?
- independence movements
- transatlantic slave trade
- colonialism
- diaspora
- apartheid
- photojournalism
- Zaria Art Society
- coiling (ceramics)
- been-to (Ghana)
- studio portraiture
- caryatid
- postcolonial modernism
- Pan-African
Key Questions
Key Terms
Though art history is filled with examples of works that honor those in power, art has also been an important tool for community organizing and protest. This unit features works by contemporary artists who activate and include the public by inviting viewer participation, staging works of art in public places, and using their work to raise awareness for important social causes.
Roman Ondák, Measuring the Universe, 2007, shown enacted at MoMA, 2009 (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
- Performance and participation
- Performance art, an introduction
- Keith Haring, Subway Drawings
- Tania Bruguera, Immigrant Movement International
- Marie Watt’s Companion Species (Speech Bubble): Blankets, Community, and Intersectionality
- Ai Weiwei, Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds)
- Raising awareness
- What does resistance look like?
- Maria Gaspar, 96 Acres Project
- Danh Vo Interview: Art Should Estrange
- Pocho Research Society (Sandra de la Loza), Echoes en el Echo: A Series of Interventions about Memory, Place, and Gentrification
- Artist Richard Bell – ‘My Art is an Act of Protest’
- Ai Weiwei, Remembering and the Politics of Dissent
- Mel Chin, Operation Paydirt
- Should art be a “tool” for resistance or activism?
- Why did Keith Haring make public art that he knew would be temporary?
- Do you think Maria Gaspar’s 96 Acres and Tania Bruguera’s Immigrant Movement International are more “art” or activism?
- How do Mel Chin and Ai Weiwei raise awareness about injustice through their art?
- performance art
- arte utíl
- graffiti
- public art
- site-responsive
- socially engaged
- spatial justice
- dissident
- mass incarceration
Key Questions
Key Terms
This regional spotlight unit focuses on contemporary artists from Latin America, a region broadly (but imprecisely) understood to include Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking parts of the Caribbean, Central, South, and North America. The thematic groupings below attest to the region’s global and hybridized character, as students will learn about artists who revitalize and update craft traditions, address geopolitical inequalities, or explore what life is like in the borderlands between the U.S. and Mexico.
Joaquin Torres García, América Invertida (Inverted America), 1943, ink on paper, 22 x 16 cm (Fundación Torres García, Montevideo)
- Regional context
- Joaquín Torres-García, Inverted America
- Latin American art, an introduction
- Jesús Rafael Soto, Houston Penetrable
- Local and global perspectives
- Abraham Cruzvillegas, Autoconstrucción
- Carmen Lomas Garza, Tamalada
- María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Spoken Softly with Mama
- Doris Salcedo: Third World Identity
- Alfredo Jaar, A Logo for America
- La Frontera: the U.S./Mexico border
- rafa esparza, Border Wash—after Leonard Nadel, 1956
- Guadalupe Maravilla, Requiem For My Border Crossing
- Minerva Cuevas, Crossing of the Rio Bravo
- Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Border Tuner
- How do Joaquin Torres-García’s Inverted America and Alfredo Jaar’s Logo for America work to challenge cultural and geopolitical biases? Did these works change your understanding of who is “American”?
- How does Carmen Lomas Garcia’s work use narrative and style to challenge high art / folk art or North/South binaries?
- What symbols and materials in Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons’ work relate to Afro-Latinx histories? Are these histories and identities typically associated with Latin America?
- How can art shed light on contentious themes and places such as La Frontera?
- Jesus Rafael Soto and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer both work in ‘participatory art.’ What are some similarities and differences between their practices?
- How does Guadalupe Maravilla use historic art forms to tell a contemporary story?
- Latin America
- La Frontera
- School of the South
- constructive universalism
- Latinx/Chicanx
- Afro-Latinx
- orisha
- santería
- shibboleth
- borderlands
- Border Art Workshop
- kinetic art
Key Questions
Key Terms
Landscape has never been a neutral genre – in past centuries, artistic representations of nature have typically reflected ideas related to property, power, and empire. In this unit, we learn about artists who offer more contemporary perspectives on the environment, take inspiration from organic materials, science, and technology, or show the impacts of modern industries on our climate and natural environment.
Sebastião Salgado, Kuwait, 1991, gelatin silver print, 45.24 × 30.1 cm (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Gary Sato, AC1998.162.1, ©Sebastião Salgado)
- Climate impacts: war, settlement, industry
- Sebastião Salgado’s Kuwait
- Wayne Thiebaud, Ponds and Streams
- Trevor Paglen, The Black Sites—The Salt Pit, Northeast of Kabul, Afghanistan
- Stéphane Couturier, Fenetre, Eastlake Greens, San Diego
- Maya Lin, Ghost Forest
- Re/Presenting landscape
- Roger Minick, Woman with Scarf at Inspiration Point, Yosemite National Park
- Binh Danh, Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite CA, May 31, 2012
- Jamie Wyeth, Kalounna in Frogtown
- Eco art and organic material
- Noel Harding, The Elevated Wetlands
- Mark Dion, Neukom Vivarium
- Maya Lin’s Silver Upper White River
- Rashid Johnson, Stacked Heads
- What does Sebastião Salgado’s work show us about the relationship between climate and war? Is this work “fine art” or “photojournalism”?
- What art historical references or elements of traditional landscape painting are visible in Stéphane Couturier’s Fenetre, Eastlake Greens, San Diego? How does this work depart from those precedents?
- How have contemporary artists updated the traditional genre of landscape representation, and what new themes or questions are they hoping to raise in their work?
- Eco-artists like Noel Harding and Mark Dion sometimes put their work to practical use, actually fermenting change such as cleaning up pollution in a local environment. Is this art, science, activism, or some combination?
- How do artists like Roger Minick and Binh Dahn bring a critical eye to past representations of the American landscape?
- climate change
- eco-art
- landscape
- institutional critique
- daguerreotype
- alternative process photography
- sublime
- national park
- salinization
Key Questions
Key Terms
This regional spotlight unit focuses on artists from the United States who are exploring what it means to be American in the 21st century, challenging the writing of official history, and proving how expansive and inclusive contemporary U.S. identity can be. Without shying away from difficult histories, or conditions of inequality that persist today, they use their art to propose new symbols, monuments, and images that could represent all of the nation’s many voices and diverse experiences.
Danh Vo, We the People, 2011–14, copper (photo: courtesy Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris) © Danh Vo
- National symbols and U.S. history
- Danh Vo, We the People
- Nari Ward, We the People (black version)
- Stephanie Syjuco, The Visible Invisible
- Ken Gonzales-Day, Erased Lynching Series
- Luis Alfonso Jiménez, Eagle
- Representation and portraiture
- Amy Sherald, Precious Jewels by the Sea
- Jordan Casteel paints her community
- Kerry James Marshall, Our Town
- Responding to monuments
- Michelle Browder, Mothers of Gynecology
- Kehinde Wiley, Rumors of War
- The National Memorial for Peace and Justice (Equal Justice Initiative)
- Kara Walker, A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby
- How are contemporary artists challenging common preconceptions about who is represented, politically and artistically in the United States?
- Whose stories and identities have been traditionally absent from discourses surrounding the founding of the United States and the history of American art?
- Danh Vo’s We the People shows the global context for one of the United States’ most iconic monuments. Why is this significant and what is he hoping to show?
- How and why are contemporary artists creating new types of monuments?
- Why does Nari Ward use techniques of obscuring and illegibility in We the People? What is he trying to say about the original terms and intentions of the U.S. Constitution?
- Why did Kara Walker decide to use materials like sugar and molasses in A Subtlety?
- Civil Rights Movement
- Taller de Gráfica Popular
- Monument Avenue
- U.S. Constitution
- silhouette
- subtlety (19th-century usage)
- sphinx
- portraiture
- Black Lives Matter
Key Questions
Key Terms
This unit focuses on work by contemporary Indigenous, Aboriginal, and Native artists from across the world, particularly in North America and Oceania. While some artists use their work to comment on land politics and histories of settler colonization, others revisit folk or ritual arts to forge new contemporary expressions and keep traditions alive.
Hock E Aye VI Edgar Heap of Birds, Native Hosts (Arkansas), 2018, aluminum sign, series of seven, 46.7 x 92.5 cm (Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, ©Hock E Aye VI Edgar Heap of Birds)
- Land politics and sovereignty
- Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds, Native Hosts (Arkansas)
- What’s in a map? Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s State Names
- Wendy Red Star, 1880 Crow Peace Delegation
- Michel Tuffery, Pisupo Lua Afe
- Shan Goshorn, Sealed Fate: Treaty of New Echota Protest Basket
- Nature and environmental stewardship
- Artist Dale Harding—”Environment is Part of Who You Are”
- Weaving the landscape: DY Begay’s The Edge
- Courtney Leonard, ARTIFICE Ellipse, 2016
- New ritual and folk arts
- Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Earth’s Creation
- Clarissa Rizal, Resilience Robe
- Postcommodity arts collective
- What does Edgar Heap of Birds want viewers to think about when they confront one of his Native Hosts signs in public space? What assumptions about the landscape does he challenge?
- How were Native Americans visually represented at the time of American expansionism, and how are contemporary Native artists re-presenting themselves and their communities today?
- What does Michel Tuffery’s Pisupo Lua Afe tell us about the relationship of economic discrimination, the environment, and food sovereignty?
- How does DY Begay’s The Edge reflect Indigenous beliefs about the natural environment?
- How does Postcommodity Arts Collective use traditional Native symbolism to comment on contemporary land politics?
- Indigenous, Aboriginal, Native, First Nations
- Indigenous sovereignty
- food sovereignty
- Trail of Tears
- Indian Territory
- upcycling
- taro leaf blight
- tapestry/loom
- Four Corners
Key Questions
Key Terms
Do we live in a simulation? Postmodern theory has long emphasized that we should question what we know to be ‘true’ and for that reason, both photography and mass media have been important sites of critique. This unit features artists who are experimenting with a range of contemporary image technologies, including photography but also video, animation, and social media, as well as those whose work reflects on the manipulative power of consumerism and commodity culture.
Gerhard Richter, Betty, 1988, oil on canvas, 102 x 72cm (Saint Louis Art Museum)
- Expanding photography and video
- Gerhard Richter, Betty
- Bill Viola, The Crossing
- Nam June Paik, Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii
- Commodities and kitsch
- The YBAs: The London-based Young British Artists
- Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
- Heisei period, an introduction
- Jeff Koons, Pink Panther
- Takashi Murakami
- The $150,000 Banana
- Digital medium, digital message
- Cao Fei, Building “RMB City”
- Art, Race, and the Internet: Mendi + Keith Obadike’s Black.Net.Art Actions
- Artist interview with Lee Bul about Willing To Be Vulnerable
- Meriem Bennani’s Exploded Visions
- How did the Young British Art movement in the United Kingdom, and the Heiwei period in Japan, relate to both local and global socioeconomic politics of the early 1990s?
- How do artists like Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons address the boundaries between fine art and kitsch? How is their work related to contemporary consumerism?
- How are artists embracing digital mediums like animation and social media to create new statements about contemporary visual and popular culture?
- How do works by Cao Fei and Meriem Bennani address local concerns within the global world of digital culture and virtual mediums?
- How do Damien Hirst, Bill Viola, and Cao Fei approach the idea of “realism” in different ways?
- photorealism
- Young British Artists (YBA)
- Freeze (exhibition)
- Heisei period
- kawaii
- manga
- capitalism
- superflat
- Second Life
- digital avatar
- video art
- digital art
