In studying The Last 40 Years of Painting, you will investigate some of the most influential painting practices over the last 4 decades. This includes analysis of the many contradictions, frustrated ambitions and redundancies, along with key debates and concepts that have shaped the reception of painting in contemporary art. While the glory days of ‘pure’ or modernist painting may well be dead, the spectre of painting still haunts contemporary video art, photography, installation and conceptual art. Painting itself persists in increasingly hybrid forms as conceptual painting, painted installations, and as photos of paintings or as paintings of photos. While considering the painting legacy, you will examine how recent Australian and international artists have responded to questions of commodification, technology, conceptualism, visuality, politics and aesthetics. This opens up theoretical and practice-based discussion of the future possibilities for addressing increasingly complex and impure notions of painting within the broader context of contemporary art.