Contemporary Art Commons^™

Art Of The Harlem Renaissance, Joshua I. Cohen

Open Educational Resources

The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, known during that time as the Negro Renaissance, affected a sea change in literary and artistic production. Whereas the early-20^th-century avant-gardes in Europe had looked to black culture only as “primitive” inspiration, Harlem Renaissance practitioners asserted their status as agents of modern history and creators of black modernism. This important and tumultuous transformation can be tracked in the artistic expressions of the period, and in relation to key texts that shaped the movement. Planned visits to Harlem sites and collections, as well as to timely exhibitions elsewhere in New York ...

Public Art And Alberta's Regionalism, Amanda Buessecker

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis is a case study of two contemporary, regionalist public artworks in Alberta: Untitled, by Fraser McGurk, and Alberta Bound Panorama, by Jason Carter. The province’s economic history is outlined as an important background factor to understanding contemporary public artworks. The two artists use symbols such as the train, compass, and grain elevator to connect a contemporary audience with Alberta’s past, reminding today’s residents of the province’s tradition of success. Even in locations that target “tourists,” these paintings use local symbols to emphasize a message of prosperity and unity to the local people of Alberta.

Fluxus: The Significant Role Of Female Artists, Megan Butcher

Honors College Theses

The Fluxus movement of the 1960s and early 1970s laid the groundwork for future female artists and performance art as a medium. However, throughout my research, I have found that while there is evidence that female artists played an important role in this art movement, they were often not written about or credited for their contributions. Literature on the subject is also quite limited. Many books and journals only mention the more prominent female artists of Fluxus, leaving the lesser-known female artists difficult to research. The lack of scholarly discussion has led to the inaccurate documentation of the development of ...

Artists' Genres: A Brief Introduction To Post-Medieval Western Art History, Robert Jensen

Art & Visual Studies Faculty Book Gallery

Artists' Genres is a brief introduction to the history of post-medieval Western art organized by the major genres. The book is designed as a basic textbook for high school- or introductory college-level courses or for individuals simply looking for an interesting guidebook into the art of this period and geographical region.

Fallen Fruit: How Social Practice Art Adapts To Success, Caroline Marie Giepert

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis will discuss the development of socially engaged art collective Fallen Fruit (active 2004 – present) in regards to their community-oriented projects, museum exhibitions, and recent online artwork Endless Orchard (2017). Fallen Fruit presents an interesting example of a social practice art group since they straddle both an activist agenda as well as the commercial world of mainstream institutions and the Internet. This paper will analyze the rationale for Fallen Fruit’s manner of adapting to commercial success by considering their progression from localized projects in the communities of Los Angeles to curated exhibitions in well-known museums and venture into ...

Layered Histories, Interpretive Desires, Rachelle Dang

School of Arts & Sciences Theses

I aim to excavate source material from the past and reinterpret its significance in the present through art. I merge history with the contemporary through acts of appropriation and material exploration, creating conditions for the viewer to grapple with colonial legacies in an affective space of visual experience.

“After-Ozymandias”: The Colonization Of Symbols And The American Monument, H. R. Membreno-Canales

School of Arts & Sciences Theses

After-Ozymandias examines the visual rhetoric of American patriotism through its many symbols, including flags and monuments. My thesis project consists of photographs of empty plinths, objects, products and archival materials. Countless relics remain today memorializing leaders and empires that inevitably declined, from antiquity to modern times. Looking back at distant history feels like a luxury, though: the question for our time in America is whether we have the strength of mind as a society to scrutinize our history, warts and all.

Strange Woods, Song Park

Graduate School of Art Theses

I am interested in searching for images of women that have not been adequately represented in visual art. As a visual artist, I am directed by my sense of sight to investigate and know something. I like to challenge myself to visualize things that do not already have a visual representation. It has been frustrating for me to create images of women, and I have experienced a deep ambivalence in response to the different images of women I have encountered. The socially and culturally constructed images of women that I have internalized and those that have developed from my own ...

Painting, Geography, And The Body: Charting The First Two Decades Of Mary Corse’S Art, Sarah A. Meller

School of Arts & Sciences Theses

Mary Corse has always maintained her position on the periphery, and her work has generally been excluded from art historical scholarship. This study illuminates the ways in which the first two decades of Corse’s practice were in fact in dynamic dialogue with broader impulses and concurrent trends operating at the time.

Misassembled Monsters, Jenn Brown

Graduate School of Art Theses

This thesis is a narrative of personal and material history. Through my work in painting, sculpture, and installation, I seek to share my story of emotional armoring in an attempt to connect to an audience. In my work, I look to my personal memories of growing up in a small, midwestern town and armoring myself with emotional barriers against its social construct of “normalcy.” Inspired by Medieval suits of armor and the characteristics of Goth culture throughout history, I employ my work to present the stage of a theatrical battleground. Creating each of my pieces is a fight for the ...

The Commodity Club: Commodity Fetishism In Modern Art And Tattoos, Shelby Maiden

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The current culture of commodity fetishism that surrounds both modern art and tattoos are disproportionately a part of the perpetuation of an artificial sense of society and community. It promotes the notion that by simply by inking the deeper layers of their skin or by spending millions on a painting that somehow one becomes elevated and enters an elite space, or club, of people like them.

Cellist, Catalyst, Collaborator: The Work Of Charlotte Moorman, Saisha Grayson

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

When classically trained cellist Charlotte Moorman (1933-1991) moved to New York City in 1957, she swiftly positioned herself at the intersection of experimental music, performance, video, and the visual arts. She interpreted works by composers like John Cage, collaborated with artists such as Nam June Paik, and founded and organized the New York Avant Garde Festival from 1963 to 1980. This dissertation argues that Moorman’s career sheds new light on what it meant to be an artist in this post-medium-specific moment and proposes that Moorman’s deterritorialization of authorship exerts pressure on traditional art histories. The generative dynamics of ...

Lauretta Vinciarelli In Context: Transatlantic Dialogues In Architecture, Art, Pedagogy, And Theory, 1968-2007, Rebecca Siefert

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation centers on the interdisciplinary work of Italian-born artist, architect, teacher, and theorist Lauretta Vinciarelli (1943-2011), a key yet relatively unknown figure who occupies a historic place in the 1970s revival of architectural drawings, Columbia University’s housing studio, Peter Eisenman’s influential Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) in New York, and architectonic trends in contemporary painting. She was the first woman to have drawings acquired by the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, in 1974), she was among the first women to teach architecture studio courses at Columbia University (hired ...

Think Natural ! Une Nécessité Qui Ne Se Cache Plus, Cedrick Nzolo Ngamobu

Artl@s Bulletin

This contribution raises questions regarding the search for mediation and transition found in pedagogy and the creative process. This can be posed as a response to an affirmation of identity, coupled with a search for philosophical autonomy. The need for mediation or transition is a necessity that we all seek in different ways and according to our respective contexts. In teaching in a school of art or fashion, it is a question with different variables that leaves the field open to all forms of questioning and brings to the fore the confrontation of modes of expression.

Au-Delà Des Rivalités Provinciales : Poétiques Visuelles Tropicalistes Et Autres Projets D’Art Étendu Depuis La Perspective Du Nord-Est Brésilien, Ayrson Heráclito

Artl@s Bulletin

This text is a compilation of writings published during the course of our research for the 3^rd Biennale of Bahia (2014), for which we worked in the curatorial team. These investigations reflect on the genealogy of Northeast Brazil’s contemporary art, seeing this region as unrestricted and non-essentialist. The production of certain artists is considered within an expanded context. To this end, we employed the idea of PEBA (Pernambuco-Bahia), while attempting to come to terms with the possibility of existence of a family, united by the desire for a poetic turn in the tropics.

The Lubumbashi Biennial: Towards New Protagonisms, Daniella Géo

Artl@s Bulletin

This article reflects on the role and relevance of the Lubumbashi Biennial (DR Congo), taking into account its specificities, context and modus operandi, as well as making brief parallels with other recurring art events in an attempt to situate the Congolese biennale within the histories of contemporary art biennales. The text provides first-hand commentary on the Lubumbashi Biennial, in particular its fourth edition in which the author formed part of the curatorial team.

Histoire Picturale De Laurent-Désiré Kabila (1997-2001), Donatien Dibwe Dia Mwembu

Artl@s Bulletin

This article considers the story of the late Laurent-Désiré Kabila, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as told by the popular painters of the city of Lubumbashi. Its shows how popular painting contributes to the knowledge of LD Kabila's reign, by serving as a support for oral history. Indeed, the commentaries of the paintings made by their authors or by critics unveil a chapter of history. Placed next to each other according to their theme and chronological order, popular paintings depict the highlights of the history of a given region in a specific area such as politics, economy ...

Le Paradigme « Art Africain » : De L’Origine À Sa Physionomie Actuelle, Henri Kalama

Artl@s Bulletin

This study relooks at the problematic concept of "African Art". The conceptual evolution of "African Art" coincides with three realities: firstly, that the art discovered in Africa was described as uncivilized; secondly, that this art capitulated with the colonial past of Africa; finally, that this art of an underdeveloped continent. In such a context of emergence, this art has been or is still exploited by ambitious and interested promoters. Hence, there is an imperative need for contemporary artists to overcome all these influences to produce works whose ontological values and universality cannot be challenged.

Les Nouveaux Défis Du Métier D’Artiste En République Démocratique Du Congo, André Yoka Lye

Artl@s Bulletin

The history of art institutions in D.R. Congo is relatively old compared to the rest of Africa. This justifies the know-how of Congolese artists since 1930-40’s, even if the general trend was, for a long time, reliant on amateurism and mimetism of European production. With the integration of art institutes into university education level since 1971, the issues and challenges became precise and appeared to be possible to overcome: professionalization, rooted and applied research, community building and international competitiveness, with the urge of solidarity with countries and experiences from the South.

Strange Multitudes, Becky Deihl, Julianne Gortakowski, Sammy Holden, Megan Mcculloh, Amanda Patterson, Rowan Price, Lucy West, Anthony Cervino, Trout Gallery, Dickinson College

Student Scholarship & Creative Works By Year

Catalogue of an exhibition at the Trout Gallery, April 27 - May 19, 2018

Senior Exhibit, Art and Art History Department, Prof. Anthony Cervino, Dickinson College.

The seven graduating studio art majors chose Strange Multitudes as the title of the exhibition not only to allude to their shared devotion to making art, but also to their personal identities and modes of expression. While the seniors work together as a community of artists, the artwork that emerges from their own studios varies widely in both content and creative media. Yet, more than a few common threads unite the students’ ambitious approaches to ...