Courses and structure

Year 1

You take the following compulsory courses:

Introduction to Art History Lecture Series and Introduction to Art History Lab
These two interlinked courses familiarise you with a range of approaches to History of Art as a discipline and provide a basic critical awareness and understanding of visual culture. By ‘visual culture’ we mean not only the kinds of artefacts we might see and interact with in museums and art galleries, but also those that make up our everyday environment: architecture, city and landscapes, advertisements, television and film, websites, the body, graffiti and so on.

The course is taught by means of theme-based lectures, seminars and participatory labs in which, individually and in groups, you will read and discuss key art historical and theoretical texts and engage with a range of visual materials.

Assessment: essays and project work.

Modernities Lecture-Seminar Series and Modernities Lab
The modern, whether considered from a social, political, economic or cultural perspective, has never been a singular phenomenon. Indeed, over the centuries, competing modernities have emerged, with different ideological bases, aspirations and consequences.

The lecture-seminar series examines some of the most important forms that the modern has taken, and looks at the ways in which these have manifested themselves in the making and viewing of visual art and culture.

We will also look at the various ways in which issues of reproduction and display, local and global circulation, and commercialisation, have all affected our understanding and experience of what art might be. The thematically related Modernites Lab series focuses on the development of art history and art criticism during the modern period and into the present.

Assessment: essays and research projects.

Year 2

You take at least three History of Art option courses. You're also able to take one Related Study.

Year 3

You take the compulsory Dissertation, two History of Art special subjects and a fourth course which may be a further History of Art special subject or an option course or a Related Study.

The Dissertation comprises an 8,000-10,000-word essay on a subject chosen by the student. Each student proposes a topic at the end of the second year and is linked with a dissertation tutor who will supervise appropriate research for the chosen topic during the third year.

Skills and careers

Skills

Our degrees develop your critical and analytical skills both specifically, with respect to modern and contemporary art, ideas and visual culture. More generally, they also develop your ability to express ideas clearly and your expertise in gathering insights from a range of subjects.

Careers

These skills are all appropriate to careers in museums and galleries as administrators or curators, as artists or art historians/ theoreticians, in journalism and the media, teaching and research and the commercial world. Indeed, many of our alumni are active in the contemporary art world, whether working for major art and cultural institutions, or having set up cultural initiatives of their own.

Alongside our lecture and seminar programmes, we run a series of events and workshops specifically aimed to help students prepare for their future directions.

• Find out more about employability at Goldsmiths
• Our alumni

About the department

The Department of Visual Cultures

History of art at Goldsmiths is taught within the Department of Visual Cultures. The Department provides a culturally diverse and intellectually challenging environment for exploring and producing new forms of contemporary art-theoretical practice.

We specialise in the histories and theories of modern and contemporary visual practices. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we look at art in an international context and consider the ways in which it engages with urgent social, cultural and political issues in the world today.

We explore visual culture within a framework of critical theory, philosophy and cultural studies. Included are issues of cultural difference, performativity, visual display, aurality, encounters with audiences and the production of subjectivities.

Our approach to learning, teaching and research is exploratory and innovative, yet rigorous. All students are encouraged to develop independence of thought by discovering, evaluating and making appropriate use of a wide range of historical, theoretical, creative and often also collaborative approaches to research and writing. It's both what we teach and research, and how we do so, that give our programmes their distinctive character in academia.

Our Department has approximately 235 undergraduates, over 100 taught postgraduate students and over 70 MPhil/PhD candidates.

Staff research interests encompass a range of topics. Find out more about staff in the Department of Visual Cultures.

Why choose Art History at Goldsmiths?

• Goldsmiths is renowned for its strengths in the creative and visual arts, as well as in the more traditional humanities subjects. Goldsmiths also offers a lively extra-curricular culture.
• The Department has an international reputation for innovation in the field of visual culture. It offers students a vibrant, intellectually challenging learning environment.
• Our syllabus enables you to pursue a specialised area of interest as well as develop a broad practical and intellectual understanding of the whole field of modern and contemporary art history and visual culture.
• All our programmes are supported by dedicated virtual learning environments, and we offer extensive computing facilities.
• We have a well-equipped book and audio-visual library on site, plus access to the library facilities of the University of London and the range of specialist libraries, museums and collections scattered throughout London.
• We are located in an area of South London that is fast developing its own vibrant art scene. Goldsmiths is around ten minutes by train from Central London. We are ideally sited for first hand study of modern and contemporary art in the Capital’s many internationally renowned galleries and museums.

Open Days

If you'd like to find out more about what it's like studying at Goldsmiths, why not come to our next Open Day? Full details and how to book your place online can be found here.

Student profiles

"I've found that the tutors and lecturers have accommodated and challenged me in any area of study and interest that I’ve come up with - no matter how strange or disparate.

I have personally found that the courses at Goldsmiths will not confine you to an exact area of study; there will almost always be an expert somewhere in the College for any area of thought you can come up with."

Morgan, BA History of Art

 

 

 

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"The course is fantastically fun. Being located within London you find yourself engulfed in the innovative exhibitions that range all over the city.

The tutors repeatedly keep you updated with events and you find it is an important aspect of understanding the current world that you exist within.

I think that Goldsmiths makes you a whole person, whose vision is open to the modern world that we live within."

Sophie, BA History of Art