This course surveys major developments in mostly American and European art since the end of World War II, exploring artworks and aesthetic theories from 1945 until the present. Beginning with Abstract Expressionism in the late 1940s, we explore significant art movements from Pop art, Minimalism, Conceptual, and performance art in the 1960s and ’70s to the postmodern practices of artists working in the 1980s and ’90s to the present. Throughout special attention is paid to the theoretical frameworks that bolstered such movements and to key questions in aesthetic theory, including the relationship between authorship, authenticity, and appropriation; the intersections of mourning and memory; and the ongoing relationship between art, commodities, and the historically material context of art practice. This course emphasizes the relationships between the formal innovations of postwar aesthetic practice and enduring political concerns, particularly those raised by critical work on race, gender, sexuality, and disability. This course also fulfills the LVIS 3001 Methods of Art History & Visual Studies requirement for LVIS majors.