Spring 2027

Current Directions in Art

Examines current artists' motivations, intentions, and processes and their relationship to general developments in contemporary art.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Michael Jay McClure

Past reviews described exams as hard and emphasized that success required reading material and thinking out of the box, though following instructions helped.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Describe trends in art during this specific period and the shift from modernism to postmodernism (and/or poststructuralism) and how this is reflected in changed concepts of art such as the grand narrative, authorship and the object.

  • Discuss how feminism, globalism, gay rights and other late 20th century and contemporary movements have engaged with, influenced and been affected by political and cultural landscapes through the arts and how historical events and political trends have affected artists and art-making.

  • Define and apply a range of art-related terms such as the abject, kitsch, purity and interdisciplinary.

  • Identify the work of a variety of artists, theorists and critics and describe their contexts and significance.

  • Engage in discussions and demonstrate development in their ideas about contemporary art and their ability to articulate them.

  • Describe how artists challenged and expanded the range of artistic practices, including performance, video art, practice-led research, community based art practice, non-material forms of creative practice and all other situational art making.

  • Create several original works in response to the course content and engage in participatory, creative activities and understand their roots in late 20th century art practices.

  • demonstrate an understanding of the institutions and practices related to contemporary art such as curation.

  • Relate specific artists' work and practice to issues of identity, perspective, spirituality, etc.

  • Describe aspects of globalism and name and describe the practice of several non Western artists.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
ART 208 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 Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MICHAEL J MCCLURE is recorded teaching in Spring 2007, Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 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

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 1790
DIS 301Classroom Instruction0 / 180
DIS 302Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 303Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 304Classroom Instruction0 / 160
DIS 305Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 308Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 309Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 307Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 310Classroom Instruction0 / 170

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

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Douglas Rosenberg

Students found the course interesting, with one noting that learning primarily occurred in sections taught by TAs rather than in lectures.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.74 GPA, 88.3% A/AB (n=128 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.78 GPA, 91.4% A/AB (n=116 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.69 GPA, 83.2% A/AB (n=107 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Michael Jay McClure

Past reviews described exams as hard and emphasized that success required reading material and thinking out of the box, though following instructions helped.

Past student reviews · Douglas Rosenberg

One student found the lecture rambling and reported that almost none of the lecture content appeared on tests.

Topics

  • Shift from modernism to postmodernism/poststructuralism
  • Feminism, globalism, and political/cultural influences on art
  • Expanded artistic practices: performance, video, community-based
  • Globalism and non-Western artists' practices

Skills

  • Defining and applying art-related terminology
  • Identifying artists' works and describing their contexts
  • Creating original works in response to course content
  • Understanding institutions and practices like curation

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.06 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · 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

1280 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.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
ART 208 · Spring 2027

Current Directions in Art

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:168:001081",
    "course_id": "ART 208",
    "course_uid": "course_c81edec70393ee4d98fd1cfc",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "001081",
    "source_subject_id": "168",
    "title": "Current Directions in Art",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
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
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "bb9a335def81b341753146fd8219afb19aaea4d648de4d17ad5db923edc4e68d",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}