This course examines the use of photography as a critical practice in the context of Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art and Institutional Critique. It also explores the new German photography, in relation to issues of seriality and typology and artistic genres such as landscape and portraiture. Finally, it focuses on the use of photographs as documents in contemporary art as part of an examination of problems relating to history, memory and trauma. Artists discussed in the class include: Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Ed Rucha, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, Jeff Wall.