Spring 2027

Foundations of Contemporary Art

Covers artists' formal, technical, and expressive concerns and the principal ideas of movements influencing contemporary art tendencies.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 8

Past student reviews · Douglas Rosenberg

Expect a significant amount of reading that can be difficult to interpret, though study guides are provided for exams.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify by name the major art movements of the 20th century.

  • Describe the essential characteristics of these art movements and articulate their significance using vocabulary and concepts covered in lecture and readings.

  • Summarize the role and viewpoints of key critics and theorists that shaped what is now known as contemporary art.

  • Formulate relationships between movements, artists, and theorists.

  • Analyze the way a narrative of "Modern Art" was formed, and how that shaped who was involved (and, more importantly, excluded) from the story.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
ART 108 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

DOUGLAS ROSENBERG is recorded teaching in Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

KELLY MURRAY is recorded teaching in Fall 2021. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MICHAEL J MCCLURE is recorded teaching in Fall 2006, Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Douglas Rosenberg

Students found the lectures engaging and useful for exam preparation, with one noting that the professor covered exam content precisely right before tests.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.76 GPA, 88.2% A/AB (n=152 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.81 GPA, 90.8% A/AB (n=153 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.80 GPA, 87.5% A/AB (n=152 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Douglas Rosenberg

Expect a significant amount of reading that can be difficult to interpret, though study guides are provided for exams.

Past student reviews · Douglas Rosenberg

One student advised against buying the textbooks, noting they are filled with jargon and complicated writing that hinders understanding.

Topics

  • Movements influencing contemporary art tendencies.
  • Formal, technical, and expressive concerns of artists.
  • Formation and exclusions in Modern Art narratives.

Skills

  • Identifying major 20th-century art movements by name.
  • Describing movement characteristics and articulating significance using course vocabulary.
  • Analyzing the formation of Modern Art narratives and their exclusions.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1316 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
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Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
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  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "c0a2ac4d7e695c7712374ab0a5a6216a54e7a52abab8f10865d92c6f1127cffc",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}