Art History and Theory

Dunedin School of Art teaches Art History and Theory in close conjunction with its aims and learning outcomes for studio subjects. Material from the wider context of Visual Culture is included. Teaching is learner-centred and students approach all projects as the framing of research that contextualises art practices relevant to their own interests.

Lecturers balance the delivery of the methods of Art History and Art Theory with the provision of contextual and contemporary concerns in art practice. We address specifically local material, from bicultural issues regarding our position within a Kai Tahu environment, the wider Māori environment, and the Pacific. Major movements in art during the modernist period and their impact on the present provide the focus for our first year courses. The second year considers current issues in twenty-first century art while the third and final undergraduate year focuses on the use of theoretical models for the framing of students’ own projects.

Courses are 15 credits, typically delivered with lectures and tutorials one day each week complemented by on-line self-directed learning. Students undertake one per semester on their first year, one taught across the full year in their second year; and one taught in the first semester in their third year. In the second semester of their third year they will take a course in Professional Practices taught from within Art History and Theory.

Students in the  Bachelor of Visual Arts and the Diploma in Art (Specialty) are taught and assessed together; the Diploma in Art (Specialty) students complete at the end of their second year unless they choose to staircase into the Bachelor of Visual Arts for a third year of study.

Graduate Diploma students are cohorted with final-year Bachelor of Visual Art students for Art History and Theory.

Postgraduate Art History and Theory is cohorted at level 8 (Postgraduate Diploma, Postgraduate Certificate and Bachelor of Visual Art Honours) and individually supervised at Level 9.

The majority of our lecturers have complementary qualifications in studio subjects. All have active research profiles.