What Is Contemporary Art? (Coursera)

What Is Contemporary Art? (Coursera)

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

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

Five themes serve as your guide: Media from Television to the Internet, Territories & Transit, Materials & Making, Agency, and Power. You’ll look at 3-D–printed glass and fiber sculptures, performances in a factory and a museum, painted portraits—as well as those made with artificial intelligence—and interventions into television and video games. And much more, all drawn from the collection of The Museum of Modern Art.
Come along as artists invite us into their studios, out into their neighborhoods, and to experiment with the materials they use. Not only will you develop a deeper understanding of how artists work today, you’ll also explore some of their many approaches to the pressing issues and questions of our time. By taking this course, you’ll gain confidence to look at contemporary art wherever you encounter it and make connections to your own life or creative practice.

Syllabus

WEEK 1: Introduction to What Is Contemporary Art?
WEEK 2: Media from Television to the Internet
WEEK 3: Territories & Transit
WEEK 4: Materials & Making
WEEK 5: Agency
WEEK 6: Power

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form (Coursera) Coursera
University of Rochester

The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form (Coursera)

The blues is an American art form and the most important musical form in jazz. Although there are other formal paradigms of the blues, such as 8-bar or 16-bar, this course focuses on different incarnations of the 12-bar blues. There are considerable differences between Early Jazz blues, Swing blues, Bebop blues, Modal blues, and Post Bop blues.

Sep 7th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Sharpened Visions: A Poetry Workshop (Coursera) Coursera
California Institute of the Arts

Sharpened Visions: A Poetry Workshop (Coursera)

Why just write poems when you can write better ones? This course is built on the notion that the most exciting writing begins after the first draft. It is specifically for folks who believe that writing poems just to express oneself is like using the Internet just for email. After all, poetry can change the way you and your readers think of the world and its inhabitants; it can break new ground for language; turn a blank sheet of paper into a teeming concert of voices and music.

Aug 31st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Innovation: From Creativity to Entrepreneurship Capstone (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Innovation: From Creativity to Entrepreneurship Capstone (Coursera)

The capstone for the specialization will provide a learning experience that integrates across all the courses within it. It will involve analysis of a situation concerning a new enterprise – a venture of one’s own or within a larger organization – to develop the current business model and compare against alternative business models so as to identify potential opportunities and challenges.

Sep 14th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Comparing Theory and Practice (Coursera) Coursera
Leiden University

Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Comparing Theory and Practice (Coursera)

Terrorism has arguably been one of the defining factors of our age. It frequently makes headlines, threatening or attacking governments, private business and ordinary citizens. And in many parts of the world, it has been one of the most important threats to peace, security and stability. But what does this exactly mean? What is the nature of this threat? Who or what is threatened, how, by whom and why? What can be done about it or how can we at least limit the impact of terrorism and make sure that terrorists do not make headlines and manage to scare us? These are just a handful of questions that will be addressed in this course that consists of three parts.

Sep 7th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Innovar (Coursera) Coursera
Arizona State University

Innovar (Coursera)

La innovación ha cobrado una importancia significativa en las corporaciones de hoy, y con frecuencia es vista como un motor importante de crecimiento y éxito en una organización. En este curso introductorio, usted aprenderá sobre el significado, la importancia, el proceso e impacto de la innovación.

Sep 7th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Teaching the Violin and Viola: Creating a Healthy Foundation (Coursera) Coursera
Northwestern University

Teaching the Violin and Viola: Creating a Healthy Foundation (Coursera)

Join us as we explore the fundamental principles and early stages of teaching violin and viola through a series of engaging video lectures and lesson demonstrations, including: 1) Master classes with some of the world’s top string pedagogues, 2) Individual lesson demos of teaching violin/viola set up, left and right hand technique and pieces from the early violin/viola repertoire, 3) Group lesson demos of teaching music theory, ear training and fun activities that encourage good playing habits, and 4) A “field trip” to the violin shop, where we will outfit a new beginning student with a proper instrument and bow.

Aug 31st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Historia del Arte: Del Barroco al Arte Posmoderno (Coursera) Coursera
Universidad de Palermo

Historia del Arte: Del Barroco al Arte Posmoderno (Coursera)

El arte deriva de un deseo de la persona para comunicarse con otros” (Edvard Munch). Y es desde la prehistoria que el humano ha dejado impresas sus huellas a través del arte. ¿Qué características tienen esas huellas artísticas? ¿Qué nos comunican sobre el periodo de tiempo al que pertenecen? Sumergite en la historia del arte recorriendo este curso, partiendo desde la construcción del Arte Moderno y realizando un camino por los diferentes sistemas de representación dominantes de distintos períodos hasta llegar a la Muerte del Arte.

Sep 7th 2026
4 Weeks
Geodesign: Change Your World (Coursera) Coursera
Pennsylvania State University

Geodesign: Change Your World (Coursera)

What happens when creativity and science come together? The power to design our world is unleashed, providing tools to inform choices about how we live! Geodesign is the glue—it’s a process that deploys creativity to connect information to people, using collaboration to better inform how we design our world.

Sep 14th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Understanding China, 1700-2000: A Data Analytic Approach, Part 2 (Coursera) Coursera
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology - HKUST

Understanding China, 1700-2000: A Data Analytic Approach, Part 2 (Coursera)

The purpose of this course is to summarize new directions in Chinese history and social science produced by the creation and analysis of big historical datasets based on newly opened Chinese archival holdings, and to organize this knowledge in a framework that encourages learning about China in comparative perspective. Our course demonstrates how a new scholarship of discovery is redefining what is singular about modern China and modern Chinese history.

Aug 31st 2026
4 Weeks
A Journey through Western Christianity: from Persecuted Faith to Global Religion (200 - 1650) (Coursera) Coursera
Yale University

A Journey through Western Christianity: from Persecuted Faith to Global Religion (200 - 1650) (Coursera)

This course follows the extraordinary development of Western Christianity from its early persecution under the Roman Empire in the third century to its global expansion with the Jesuits of the early modern world. We explore the dynamic and diverse character of a religion with an enormous cast characters. We will meet men and women who tell stories of faith as well as of violence, suppression, and division.

Sep 7th 2026
5-12 Weeks