The central problem dealt with in the two-semester course is the development of representation in visual arts and music since the end of the 19th century up to now. Lectures present the gradual increase in intermedia character and in intellectuality of art creation, the complex process of the growing importance of discourse of art media, and they also explore development parallels between art and the discourse of humanities, incl. their mutual influence and convergence.
The theory is illustrated with examples from the work of the main representatives of paradigm changes in artistic representation of the 20th century (the line of Manet - Duchamp - Cage - Kaprow - Kosuth - Smithson - Hill - Miller). Equal attention is paid to the philosophical-aesthetic reflection of contemporary art (Bejamin, Lyotard, Virilio, Baudrillard, Foucault, Barthes, Deleuze, Derrida, Danto, Welsch and others) and to key concepts in the theory of art (Francastel, Greenberg, Mitchell, Freedberg, Kraus, Owens and others).