This course is a short history of late 19th and 20th century art seen from the perspective of techniques and materials. We will analyze how industrial colors, prepared canvases, and portable easels had an impact on the Impressionists. We will consider the differences in the use of collage by Cubists and Futurists, as well as by Dadaists, whose the assemblages, material experiments, and exhibitions come up against environmental art. We will ask how the use of plastic materials in painting and sculpture in the Sixties extended the possibilities or each discipline. We will investigate the use of the body and of the video camera in the late Sixties and Seventies, the diffusion of installations in the Eighties, and the mixed medias typical of the art of Nineties. The course looks behind the scenes of contemporary art, uncovering the creative and formal innovations which were driven by the use of new and unusual materials and by experimental techniques.

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