A history of modern art in 73 lectures: lecture 1 - brief overall introduction (please start here)

This is a short explanatory introduction to a comprehensive series of 73 lectures about modern and contemporary art history by David Clarke, originally given in the Department of Fine Arts, University of Hong Kong. All listeners are recommended to start by listening to this introduction before exploring other lectures in the sequence, which covers art from around the 1880s to the present day. A complete listing of the individual lecture topics appears on the screen during the first part of this video, and it may be used as an index to track down lectures on specific topics that might interest you (please use the pause button to read the details). The master sequence number of the lecture is the first part of the individual lecture file name. The letters that follow identify which of the three linked courses the lecture comes from, and this is followed by a code to identify which lecture (and half of lecture) within that course is found in that video. There is a playlist available on the 'Solubleshark' channel for those who would like to play all lectures in sequence.

Thanks to Yat Leung and the staff of the Department of Fine Arts, University of Hong Kong, for help in turning the original lecture sound files into videos.

About the lecturer: David Clarke obtained his Ph.D. from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. He taught in the Department of Fine Arts, University of Hong Kong, from 1986 to 2017. He is currently Honorary Professor in the Department. His research has been primarily in the areas of American and Chinese art history, and his sole-author books are: Modern Art: A Graphic Guide, Camden Press, 1987; The Influence of Oriental Thought on Postwar American Painting and Sculpture, Garland Publishing, 1988; Art and Place: Essays on Art from a Hong Kong Perspective, Hong Kong University Press, 1996; Modern Chinese Art, Oxford University Press, 2000; Hong Kong Art: Culture and Decolonization, Reaktion Books, 2001; Reclaimed Land: Hong Kong in Transition, Hong Kong University Press, 2002; Hong Kong x 24 x 365: A Year in the Life of a City, Hong Kong University Press, 2007; Water and Art, Reaktion Books, 2010; and Chinese Art and its Encounter with the World, Hong Kong University Press, 2011. Clarke’s scholarly articles have been published in journals such as Art History, Art Journal, Journal of American Studies, Oriental Art, Public Culture, The American Journal of Semiotics, Art Criticism, Postcolonial Studies, Journal of Visual Culture, Early Music and Third Text. Clarke is the founder and academic director of the Hong Kong Art Archive (http://finearts.hku.hk/hkaa/). He is also active as a photographer and visual artist. dclarke@hku.hk. For information about his publications and some full-text free access please visit: http://hub.hku.hk/cris/rp/rp01181;jsessionid=CF1CCECA46F9945536252B2EC79B4C12

These lectures primarily treat European and American art - with some Chinese art added in to destablize a Western-centred conception of art history. Art from elsewhere in the world came in during student presentations, and was also treated in other courses which (like the student presentations) can't be shared online because they were taught in a workshop style.