World War II saw European artists move to the USA, the growth of the US as a super-power, and New York supplanting Paris as centre of the art world. In the fourth week of the course, we will examine mid-century New York and the work of Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. 

We will also consider the work of a younger cohort reacting to the high seriousness of their predecessors with the era of Pop Art, ushered in by artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. 

This session will also explore artistic collectives, such as Spiral, in the USA. 

In our fifth session, we study art 'off the walls', created by artists like Yves Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle, Yoko Ono, Yayoi Kusama, Sophie Calle, Cindy Sherman, and the interest in performance art. 

In the second half of our session, we examine artworks where text replaces image, and look at how artists use words in their art, including the Guerilla Girls, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Ed Ruscha, and Bob and Roberta Smith.

In the first half of our final session, we will consider Conceptual Art from its godfather, Marcel Duchamp, whose practice ripples through the decades and finds echoes in the work of contemporary artist Martin Creed. We will also examine the impact of Damien Hirst and the Young British Artists (YBAs) who rose to prominence in the 1990s, and the powerful impact of their work on the art market.   

We will explore themes of feminism, gender politics, issues of race, and of non-European art, changing our approach to how we view art; its democratisation via graffiti art, and how this impacts the art market. We will ponder how the canon is made and review our journey through the modern to the contemporary art world.