HAA 177M - Manet to Man Ray: Modern Art and Its Colonial Matrix

Maria Gough

Intersection of modern art, colonialism, and imperial violence.  Select episodes/aspects between 1860s-1930s, focusing on but not limited to the Scramble for Africa and the Soviet recalibration of the Imperial Russian Empire in Central Asia.  Key topics:  Surrealism’s anti-colonial exhibition of 1931;  Soviet photo expeditions in Central Asia;  Neoprimitivism in Russia, Caucuses, & Central Asia;  Picasso, colonialism, and Communism;  Matisse & Islamic/North African textiles;  Manet’s Execution of Emperor Maximilian (French intervention in Mexico);  Fénéon’s collection of African art, etc.