Benjamin Buchloh

don't let the "intro" in the title fool you.. as someone with no art history background i found myself incredibly lost for the first 3 months of this course. when professor buchloh lectures you get the sense that you're around someone of genius status, and i would have loved to sit in on his lectures without being graded for understanding them (as it appears many people did each class). he knows what he's talking about, and his theories and methods of teaching are very interesting. that said, i found this class to be one of the hardest i've ever taken. because i didn't really understand i was forced to do ALL of the reading and take down almost everything he said in lecture notes to get a decent grade. this turned out to be helpful for the mostly-open-book exams, which weren't as bad as i had expected. we did not have discussion sections with the TAs for some reason, and i think this had a lot to do with my classes mounting confusion. overall i think he's a great teacher and very knowledgeable, i would just recommend this class to someone who already has an art history background, or at least an intro course!

Oh where to begin? The kiss-ass reviews of Buchloh are completely ridiculous. While Buchloh is a nice guy who sometimes cracks a joke, his TAs can be unbearable. Sure this guy knows what he's talking about -- too bad all he talks about is Dada. Come on! He fails to address many of the 20th C artists that are of central importance (Dali, Mondrian, etc) AVOID this class if you don't want to unnecessarily kill your GPA and your brain cells. If you DO decide to take this class... get a huge cup of coffee before every class and make sure to find a TA that hasn't been brainwashed by Buchloh... yeah, good luck finding that!

This professor is remarkable. Even though his first couple lectures seem incomprehensible to the average art history dilletante and above average art history major, one eventually gets over his haughty Teutonic affectation of Parisian French and the constant barrage of art historical terms that he throws at you in his lecture because 1) heÂ’s infinitely smarter than you 2) one lecture in his course is infinitely more rewarding than an entire semester worth of almost any class at Columbia (and in my case, four years of economics). HeÂ’s an artistic tour de force: he digresses as lecture, maligns French names with an undeniably Buchlohian patois, makes overly sophisticated art history rejoinders, and even inserts the occasional polemic against mass culture. If youÂ’re expecting a survey course that will allow you to get by at the MoMa, seek elsewhere; however, if youÂ’re looking for a course that will allow to eloquently bulls**t in a Kurt Schwitters independent gallery exhibition, youÂ’ve found youÂ’re course. Highly suggested: Find a TA that can (patiently) explain some of the theories and terms that Buchloh covers in his lecture.

Buchloh is definately one of the best art historians that Barnard/Columbia has to offer. He's outrageously smart and well read but can be intimidating. Although his German accent can make some of the lectures confusing, once you get used to his style, you will be glad you took his class. I loved the class and would defiately take another class with him.

Professor Buchloh is definately one of the best assets the Columbia/Barnard Art History program has to offer. As a Marxist Art Historian, he takes on a different view of art in general. His lectures are interesting although his choice of vocabulary requires some outside effort from a dictionary. I love 20th Century Art and enjoyed watching his enthusiasm in the work. He seems intimidating but is very approachable and has a dry sense of humor. His fetish for Duchamp is funny, he even admits to it.

The class is fascinating and no matter how much art history you may know, or how much you know about photograph, you still learn alot. Buchloh is a little arrogant but then again when you know as much as he does why wouldn't you be. At first it is really hard to understand him but after a week or two you can slowly begin to work through each one of his sentences, which could drag on for 10 minutes at a time. Reading is fairly interesting but there is alot of it. 3 Readers and 2 books...the books you don't really need to know but they help with the exams but the readings from the Readers are heavily emphasized and tested on. And it helped that the TAs were fairly nice and understood that no one could possibly cover the amount that Buchloh expected from everyone.

this is the best class i have taken as a first-year. if i decide to major in art history, it will be because of professors like Buchloh. yes, this class is painful at times but just to hear this man talk is astounding and well worth the effort. he is really at the top of his game. i thought of myself as extremely lucky that i even got to be in a seminar class with Buchloh as a first-year. he's also very approachable during his office hours and has a very good sense of humor! you will have to work but i find that i write a lot of my essays for his class with pleasure. however, i do have to say that i think he plays favorites. ive seen him be a little downright rude and difficult to students he doesn't like as much (our class is really small) but i suspect that is not a problem in the huge lecture classes he usually teaches. all in all though he is a brilliant professor.

Oh, Buchloh. I disagree with the horrendously negative CULPA review on him... like many Columbia profs, he's chock-full of experience, brilliance, and pretension but comes off as a bad teacher because his lectures are so difficult to understand. I gave up on taking notes during class about halfway through the course and found that I enjoyed audibly absorbing the material far more than I did scrambling to record each twelve-syllable word that came out of his mouth. Thankfully, lecture notes weren't really needed because my TA did a wonderful job of decoding Buchloh-talk for us and compressing his endless lectures into a list of essential concepts we needed to know. About that: your TA will make or break the course for you; he/she grades your papers and exams, so if you get one who's nitpicky about details, watch out. (Don't worry; most of them were friendly, patient, and understanding, having taken the course themselves as undergrad Art History majors at Columbia and Barnard). We barely got through half of the syllabus this semester, but still got a lot out of the class. Be prepared to spend a lot of time untangling Saussurean semiotic theory, too. Buchloh himself can be quite a riot ("This next painting is... well, this painting is utter crap, don't you think? It's not even worth talking about. Ugh, next slide, please."); his dry humor comes out at the most random times, and w…

Buchloh replaces the venerable Rosalind Krauss as Columbia's resident photography guru, and it's a good fit. Bored with intro art history lectures which consist of names, dates, and little else? Buchloh's lectures won't necessarily keep you awake, but his opinions are sometimes fascinating, often controversial, and filled with enough jargon to make attendance at the weekly sections a necessity. Buchloh is at the top of his game, however, and the jargon is perhaps necessary to keep the course on such a high level. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the theory behind photography, and modern art in general.

This is a prof. who clearly knows his stuff. Even though he can appear to be intimidating - he's not (just go to his office hours if you have questions). His lectures are bound to expand your vocabulary. As a Columbia student, I had thought that I was verbally well versed, but the lectures in this class have illustrated just how many words there are in the English language. The subject manner is great, the class efficiently run, and the prof. even has a dry/keen sense of humor. The quality of TA's can vary greatly. My TA, Beth, makes or section write added "book reports" if it appears that we haven't done the reading. This is an unnecessary hassle for an adult college student.