Joseph D. Masheck

Degrees

MLITT, 2001, Univ Dublin Trinity Coll Dubli; PHD, 1973, Columbia University; MA, 1965, Columbia University; AB, 1963, Columbia University

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Bio

Modern art history should mean a modern view of all art, not just a wayward last episode in some cultural serial (and likewise, "postmodernism" should mean more than ignorance of modernism). Modernity opened up artists' shop-talk about how works of art are put together, which had been downplayed in favor of literacy or representational significance. For paintings are more than "pictures," sculptures not just puppet-like "statues," and buildings are useful yet also abstract constructions. Historical context ought to appear in sharper focus than ever once the artwork is seen as something from a specific past but still "alive."

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Teaching Interests

Alternative (more theoretical) Art History survey; freshman seminar 'Introduction to Architecture'; lecture courses in Modern Architecture and 2oth-Century European Painting; seminars and 'workshops' in Abstract Art; Architecture of 'Functionalism'; Cubism; Modernism / Postmodernism (interdisciplinary) / 'Art / Propaganda / Revolution.'

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Research Interests

The architecture of Adolf Loos (1870-1933); Kazimir Malevich and his influence on abstract painting down to the present; religion and art.

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