FINAR604 GE: What We Bought

The relationship between art and commerce is deeply intertwined and consistently problematic in its fuzzy role in the marketplace. At a moment when art fairs function like international department stores and when global capitalism foregrounds production and distribution, economic transactions are a particularly visible thread in contemporary art, (the recent Takashi Murakami career survey at MOCA being a troublesome apotheosis). This course surveys ways in which buying, selling, and production are exploited in recent and historical art practice by looking at artistic precedents, reading sociological texts, and in making store-bought projects. Topics to be addressed include the Readymade, Pop, artist as business, art economies, branding, marketing, packaging, the mall, the factory model, superstores, and waste streams. These can be seen in works by artists such as Danica Phelps, Andreas Gursky, Tara Donovan, Choi Jeong Hwa, Jeff Koons, Surasi Kusolwong, Atelier Van Leishout, Sylvie Fleury, Andy Warhol, and Brian Ulrich. Borrowing the title from Robert Adams' series of photographs documenting, perhaps lamenting the residential and commercial development of pristine Colorado landscape, the perspective here acknowledges the complexity of creating critical distance from acts of consumption in which we're universally implicated.