This course will address global visual art production since 1950, with an emphasis on Europe and North America. Beginning with the emergence of High Modernism in a context of cultural production after World War II, the course considers major art historical movements. Different art practices and aesthetic theories will be examined in order to foreground the complex relations that exist between art objects and practices, and specific theoretical, cultural, and historical contexts. Topics may range from: the role of art in consumerist society, the dematerialization of the art object, the shift from late-Modernist to Post-Modern sensibilities, and questions of identity and subjectivity. Throughout, students will be introduced to a range of theoretical and methodological models which foreground formal investigations, philosophical inquiry, and social and cultural analysis.