What Is Contemporary Art?: A Free Online Course from The Museum of Modern Art

What is con­tem­po­rary art? In this course from the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art, you’ll explore this ques­tion through more than 70 works of art made from 1980 to the present, with a focus on art of the last decade. You’ll hear direct­ly from artists, archi­tects, and design­ers from around the globe about their cre­ative process­es, mate­ri­als, and inspi­ra­tion.

3D print­ed glass and sculp­tures made of fiber. Dance per­formed in the fac­to­ry and the muse­um. Hack­ing into tele­vi­sion and video games. Por­traits made with paint or arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. Inti­mate explo­rations of the body and col­lec­tive actions.

In this course, you’ll learn about art­works in both tra­di­tion­al and sur­pris­ing medi­ums, all drawn from the col­lec­tion of MoMA. Each week stu­dents will look at con­tem­po­rary art from a dif­fer­ent theme: Media from Tele­vi­sion to the Inter­net, Ter­ri­to­ries & Tran­sit, Mate­ri­als & Mak­ing, Agency, and Pow­er.

You can take What Is Con­tem­po­rary Art? for free by select­ing the audit option upon enroll­ment. If you want to take the course for a cer­tifi­cate, you will need to pay a fee.

What Is Con­tem­po­rary Art? will be added to our list of Free Art & Art His­to­ry Cours­es, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

For a com­plete list of online cours­es, please vis­it our com­plete col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

For a list of online cer­tifi­cate pro­grams, vis­it 200 Online Cer­tifi­cate & Micro­cre­den­tial Pro­grams from Lead­ing Uni­ver­si­ties & Com­pa­nies, which fea­tures pro­grams from our part­ners Cours­era, Udac­i­ty, Future­Learn and edX.

And if you’re inter­est­ed in Online Mini-Mas­ters and Mas­ter’s Degrees pro­grams from uni­ver­si­ties, see our col­lec­tion: Online Degrees & Mini Degrees: Explore Mas­ters, Mini Mas­ters, Bach­e­lors & Mini Bach­e­lors from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.