ARTH 388 Narration and Art: Thinking with Mieke Bal

• Mondays, 11:45am-2:15pm
• Online: Access through Moodle
• Instructor: Dr. Laurie Milner

In this course, we will explore the development of ideas in the writings on narratology and art by the Dutch interdisciplinary cultural theorist, critic and video artist Mieke Bal (b. 1946) and consider their implications for the writing of art history and art criticism today. This will involve reading her theoretical and creative/analytical writing and responding to it, and by doing some of our own experiments in creative/analytical writing.

We begin with an introduction to the three-layer system proposed by Bal to facilitate interpretive description and discussion of cultural artefacts that ‘tell a story’ (Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, 1985). In small groups and as a class we will explore how Bal’s definitions, which are precise and systematic, might apply in the analysis and interpretation of selected art objects and performances. This will lead us to explore the multiple temporalities at play in narrative artefacts and in each beholder’s interaction with them. Understanding that beholding (and writing) is a spatial and temporal event involving matter, perception, memory and desire, our discussion will open to the manifold identifications and meanings that are activated by the encounter.

In her writings on contemporary art Bal aims to provide a reading of the relationship of politics and art that is not hinged to the content or subject matter of either. “In exploring what makes art political”, she writes, “I explore where art’s political efficacy can be located; how it performs; how it exerts agency; and what the point is of art’s political agency for the larger domain or culture” (2010). These relations and effects will be explored through the analysis of a range of contemporary art objects and practices.