ONLINE COURSE
Recent Histories: A Survey of Photography from 2000–2020
The last twenty years have brought enormous change to the medium of photography. From large-scale color documentary work that prevailed through the early 2000s, to photo conceptualism, experiments with materiality, and new reflexive modes of addressing race and gender identity, the past two decades have presented a panoply of themes and material expressions that have opened doors for all kinds of artists working with the photographic. In this course, we’ll examine these changes, and consider how they can inspire and enrich your own work. Through virtual gallery visits, lectures, weekly writing assignments, and discussion, we’ll explore the terrain of contemporary photography and related media and find our place in it. This is a course for photographers and general art audiences alike, whether you want to be inspired to try new directions in your own work, or simply leave with an expanded knowledge of the field. Artists will include: Thomas Struth, David Goldblatt, Alfredo Jaar, Carrie Mae Weems, Wang Qingsong, Jo Ratcliffe, Hank Willis Thomas, Justine Kurland, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and many more.
Joanna Lehan is a New York-based teacher, editor, writer, and curator. She co-organized several international survey exhibitions at the International Center of Photography (ICP), including three triennial exhibitions: Strangers (2003); Ecotopia (2006), and A Different Kind of Order (2013), as well as 2017’s Perpetual Revolution. She edited monographs by Susan Meiselas, Trevor Paglen, Hank Willis Thomas, and Thomas Ruff and for Aperture Foundation, as well as several projects for the Walther Collection. She has written for Aperture magazine, Photograph, PDN, Time’s “Lightbox”, and Contact Sheet, and contributed essays to several books. She teaches Survey of Contemporary Photography at ICP-Bard and at Barnard College.
Joanna teaches “Recent Histories: A Survey of Photography from 2000–2020” for StrudelmediaLive.
