This course explores how art strategies (in traditional mediums such as painting, sculpture, and architecture, as well as film, video, performance) and the critical debates that arose in Europe and North America in the aftermath of the First World War to the present day, reflect the social, economic, and political context charting the rise and fall of modernism and the transition to postmodern practices within the visual arts. The role of art in society, its relationship to mass culture, and what is at stake in maintaining socially engaged art today are considered.