Hip Hop in Contemporary Art and Design

Catalog description

Hip hop shapes today's visual culture, from magazines, clothing and design, to the art world itself. But what is it? Many of the elements of the culture can be traced back to the early 70's with graffiti on trains, and new forms of street dance, poetry and DJ'ing coming out of The Bronx. An afro-centric street culture became a new language which spoke to the world. Exploding in the 1980's with artists such as Jean Michel Basquiat, Fab 5 Freddy and Keith Haring up to the present with Kehinde Wiley, Rene Cox, Hank Willis Thomas, Sanford Biggers and Luis Gispert, etc., who broke race and class barriers in visual arts around the world, fusing the pop sensibilities of Warhol with radical Afro-America aesthetics of abstract style, repetition and representation. The course will combine lectures, slide shows, video and readings; engaging students in discussion and writing on the class topics.