Contemporary Art Commons^™

The Ephemerality Of The Living And The Persistence Of The Inanimate, Erin Johnston

MFA in Visual Art

I create fragile, sculptural works with paper. Either cast from pre-existing objects or constructed forms, my three-dimensional works ultimately become pure paper objects. I use the visual language of absence, memory, ruin and ephemerality to present modern artifacts and address the now. I am interested in how the manufactured crumbs we leave behind as a species reveal our collective desires, and our relationship to the body and mortality. I am fascinated with, and even enchanted by, the proliferation of material objects and their tendency to surpass the lifespan of any single human. Perhaps this behavior of producing lasting creations is ...

Pop/Art: The Birth Of Underground Music And The British Art School, 1960–1980, Andrew Cappetta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Pop/Art: The Birth of Underground Music and the British Art School, 1960-1980” argues that the British art school became a training ground for underground musicians in the 1960s and the 1970s because of changes in art school pedagogy and policy in the post-war period. New educational philosophies propagated during the late 1950s and 1960s, above all Basic Design and Behaviorism, redefined the artist as an intermedial experimenter, collapsed distinctions between fine art and design, and theorized the art object as a dynamic and interactive matrix between the maker and viewer. These initiatives, which evolved from art school reforms that ...

The Gendered Optics Of Bridget Riley's "Op Art": Her Artistic Dismissal And Influence On The 1960s Mod Era, Anna S. Kienberger

University Honors Theses

The English painter Bridget Riley (1931-) is widely regarded as one of Britain's most successful international contemporary artists. The progression of her career to reach such acclaim, however, has been marked by consistent misperceptions, the greatest of which arose during the beginning of her ascent when she was pointedly positioned as a leading figure of both Optical Art and United Kingdom Mod fashion. The critical reception of Bridget Riley's early work (1961-67) and its appropriation by Mod fashion retailers provide interesting case studies of (1) the commercialization of art before the establishment of US copyright law and (2 ...

Echoed Sites And The Unknowable Object, Joseph Canizales

MFA in Visual Art

This thesis will discuss the expanded field of sculpture, simulacra, digital technology, and two terms I’ve devised: the unknowable object, and echoed sites. Within these two terms, I’m concerned with the complicated relationship between humans and geology and how we extract material from the ground without reflecting on the geologic history of the site. In echoed sites I create sculptures with and without a geologic site or object, by way of digital technology. These forms display two states paradoxically in balance, where what’s presented leaves more questions than answers. Thus, as part of echoed sites, exists the ...

Sanctuary: The-Construction Of Communion, Carlos Salazar-Lermont

MFA in Visual Art

This thesis narrates the development of the multimedia art installation called Sanctuary. I unwrap the theoretical background of my practice, which is rooted in the theories of deconstruction by Jacques Derrida, and the rhizome theory by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. I approach my creative process as a grammatic of matter, space, and time, constructing meaning through an interplay of significants that connect to political, social, economic, and cultural implications. In the case of Sanctuary, I sought to create a path of empathy towards Venezuelan refugees in St. Louis, Missouri through the exploration of the concept of communion. This idea ...

Framing Colonialism: An Analysis Of Kent Monkman’S Mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People), Jasen D. Evoy

The Confluence

The 2019 diptych mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) by Kent Monkman is one of a series of recent commissions by the Metropolitan Museum in New York granted to diverse artists, shifting the Museum’s focus to a broader, inclusive, and global scope. Monkman’s large scale paintings are site specific, exploring interactions between the work and the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum. The work uses visual quotation to connect to historical works within the collection of the Met, thereby commenting on the legacy of colonialism and subsequent impacts on Native peoples and cultures. The analysis of the work focuses on ...

Partisan Dilemmas Between Activism And Socially Engaged Art: Situations In Loisaida At The End Of The Seventies, Olga FernáNdez López

Artl@s Bulletin

The end of 1970s is an interesting moment to understand the epistemic shift that involves the passage from partisan artistic activism to contemporary socially engaged art. Then, a significant convergence took place in the neighborhood of Loisaida (NYC), where artists and local residents coincided in their modes of action. However, its subsequent cultural interpretations have overlooked each other. Art history cosmopolitan approaches clashed with migration identities, traversed by victimhood, but also by transnational heritages. This article examines and reunites both traditions looking for a reparative art history.

Sandstorm Spring 2022, Leslie Malland

Sandstorm: A Journal of Arts and Letters

Full Manuscript

Operatic Mysticisms: Mountains, Deserts, Waterscapes, Andrew Demczuk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Operatic Mysticisms: Mountains, Deserts, Waterscapes examines the ways we encounter environments as readers/viewers of operas, literature, film, and sound recordings, and how each medium requires different detail-gathering techniques. Respective to the previously mentioned mediums, Sun & Sea (2017), Mount Analogue (1952), El Mar La Mar (2017), and Energy Field (2010) are analyzed by engaging with environmental media studies and invention. Reflecting the nature of each landscape—summits of mountains, aporias of deserts, and mysteries of waterscapes—an elemental approach is taken in investigating how these spaces may be noticed, internalized, recorded, and traversed by both the artist and viewer. With ...

The Met Costume Institute: Evolution, Metamorphosis, And Cultural Phenomenon, Shelby Kanski

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

The Apocalyptic Mode In Contemporary Environmental Art, Victoria Erisman

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Apocalyptic themes make up a growing trend in contemporary Western environmental art, especially art concerned with climate change. From art that revives the apocalyptic sublime of the nineteenth century Romantic and Hudson River School movements to photojournalism of current end-of-days disasters, apocalyptic motifs and subject matter have become significant in visual responses to and depictions of present environmental crises. This thesis examines the apocalyptic mode in contemporary environmental art, arguing that the apocalyptic mode ultimately creates more problems instead of spurring solutions to environmental injustices. Through engagement with existing scholarship on the history and efficacy of apocalypticism and catastrophism, as ...

Rodcon, Flier, 2022, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

RodCon Documents

Rodcon
Saturday April 9, 2022
10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Free and open to the public

Flier used in promotion of the event.

The Currency (Volume 1, Issue 1), Elsa Akesson, Claudio Castillo, Sophie Delaplaine, Jade Wu, Maria Paula Suarez

The Currency--SIA Student Magazine

Table of Contents

Page 2: Elsa Akesson, "Kids of Morondava," 2020, oil & acrylic on linen, 130 x 97 cm.

Page 4: An Interview with Generative Artist Claudio Castillo by Sophie Delaplaine, SIA-London '22

Page 9: Jade Wu, "Grain Rain," 2020, oil on canvas, 24 x 36"

Page 11: Navigating the Artworld: My Personal Journey as an Emerging Artist through the Pandemic by Maria Paula Suarez, SIA-NY '23

The Woman Behind The Whitney, Breanna Epp

Honors Theses, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was the founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as a prominent sculptor and patron to artists in the early 1900s. Her art collection was the largest of American art at the time, and she led the nation into an appreciation of its own native art. Native in this context specifically means any art that was made in America, not strictly art made by the indigenous people of the Americas. Tackling her entire life, from growing up in the Vanderbilt family to her death, I provide an overview of her interactions with the art ...

Visual Diaries: Towards Art History As Storytelling, Alpesh Kantilal Patel

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

This essay examines variants of what I refer to as “visual diaries” – or thinking through images and written or oral language – as important “worldmaking” exercises, essential for students of color, women, sexual minorities, or other marginalized subjects. I provide my reflections on assigning this dynamic and student-centered, practice-based assignment in my contemporary art courses at a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) of higher education and a summer art residency program unaffiliated with a university. Besides my reflections on my pedagogy, I also share student feedback from unsolicited testimonials and answers to questionnaires. I argue that visual diaries transform students into veritable storytellers ...

Tom Clancy: Creating A Sense Of Place A New York Sculptor’S Approach To Site 1960–87, Marina Gluckman

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis contextualizes the sculptural work made by American artist Tom Clancy (b. 1933) in New York between the 1960s and 1980s. Discussing Clancy’s approach to indoor and outdoor sites, it emphasizes the reasons the artist’s work should be considered within the history of the downtown New York art scene.

Steve Mcqueen, The Filmmaker, And Kant’S Sensus Communis, Livia Melamed Margon

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects on the ways in which art reinforces community and reduces political polarity by stimulating shared feelings, namely through Kant's idea of sensus communis. To illustrate its argument, this thesis analyzes the work of Steve McQueen, a politically aware, ethically engaged, and broadly recognized filmmaker and artist.

Rodcon, Program, 2022, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

RodCon Documents

Inside This Program:

--Welcome to RodCon
--Location
--Schedule
--What's That?
--Artists
--Food
--Sponsors
--Autographs

Misled Youth, Mark Tan

Theses and Dissertations

I’m a first-generation Canadian who was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario by Asian immigrants. I have migrated to the United States and lived here for 7 years. Through my work, I express the emotional value of preconceived notions, disconnectedness, and longing in search of finding place and acceptance within a community. Drawing from memory, personal narrative, emotion, and perception, I manipulate data into lines, forms, and materials through a subjective human experience from the lens of a non-citizen. By projecting the migration movement of my family lineage from China and the Philippines to Canada as well as my ...

History Of Fashion Installations As Art Exhibitions And Their Impact On The Public’S Perspective On Culture And Community, Arabella Riley

MA Theses

The current study targeted the problem of the relationship among the notions of fashion, art, and culture. The study aimed to determine the potential role of fashion brands and artists in the transformation of modern culture. Additionally, the study sought to analyze the forms of collaboration between fashion and arts, and their commercial and conceptual value. As to the research methods, qualitative secondary data review using thematic analysis methodology was utilized. The research findings included the recognition of the significant role of modern fashion and arts in the transformation of the public culture. Furthermore, it was revealed that different formats ...