Modern Art and Architecture Commons^™

Music As A Tool For Ecstatic Space Design, Pranav Amin

Masters Theses

Music and architecture share a sacred bond across cultures. Their histories intertwine and together, they shape ritualistic, religious, and popular practices. As one of the few remaining avenues of universal transcendental experiences that have been so integral to humans, music’s ability to create ecstatic spaces is ever more necessary for the modern human. This thesis uses spatial, artificial intelligence, visual, and aural tools—while engaging in a dialogue between rationalist architecture and shamanic conceptions of spaces—to create an ecstatic space that seeks to reimagine the union of music and architecture. It reveals new ways in which this union can be experienced …

A.R. Futruristic Scenario In Seun, Yookyung Lee

Masters Theses

Due to social distancing policies during the coronavirus pandemic, people have increasingly turned to digital platforms to fulfill what they previously enjoyed in face-to-face interactions. The high demand for virtual world services, called “metaverses,” has sparked discussions about the possibility of completely replacing the real world, which has raised questions about the role of architects in dealing with physical spaces. However, it is widely believed that digital elements will merge into the real world instead of completely replacing it, which makes augmented reality (AR) a key technology to study in the context of architecture.

In “Learning from Las Vegas,” Robert …

Navigating Contextualism: An Architectural And Urban Design Study At The Intersection Of Climate, Culture, Urban Development, And Globalization Case Study Of Dire Dawa, Ruth Wondimu

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates architectural typologies that have dominated the world especially in the context of Ethiopia. It critiques the de-contextual nature of the modernist and related typologies through the lens of climate, socio-economic fabric, and urban design. It then focuses on Dire-Dawa University, located in the eastern part of Ethiopia, by investigating the authenticity, functionality, and contextuality of the architectural designs as well as their relationship with the people, urban landscape, and culture. Finally it provides design interventions that mitigate the climate related problems through local solutions.

The Gilded Tropics: Winslow Homer And John Singer Sargent In Florida, 1886-1917, Theodore W. Barrow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the Floridian works of Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent in the context of tourism, race, and the environment as perceptions of the tropics in an Anglo-American context. Both artists sojourned in Florida and produced a number of watercolors and related oils that not only testify to a rapidly-expanding tourist industry to the Sunshine State, but also update the Romantic myths of the tropics with a more sober, ironic Realist take. While Homer and Sargent continue to be popular subjects for studies and exhibitions on their own, this dissertation is the first to consider how their shared …

The Hospitality Of Doubt, Ian Grieve

Art Theses and Dissertations

This paper discusses the last two years of research toward a Master of Fine Art in Studio Art. I mainly address my painting practice, but while in the program, I have worked in collage, ceramics, intaglio printmaking, and sculpture. My paintings are thick, multilayered, and often contain ambiguous narratives. The pictures develop through engagement, openness, and response within the work. I seek and embrace connection with viewers of the work. The spectator ‘completes’ the art and enhances or alters the artworks meaning by observing it and applying their individual perspectives. I seek to incorporate a sense of nostalgia and familiarity. …

Archi-Comics, Timothy Gatto

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Humor in architecture is not at the forefront of architect’s minds, this comes from architects need to be deemed serious. This way of thinking is what has backed architects up into a corner banal and stagnant architecture. Architecture is the art of context, everything in architecture is referential. Humor is foundationally the exact same way, the incongruity theory makes humor possible by putting a concept into context with things and finding contradictions in the process, thus developing a joke. Each of these arts, humor and architecture, are that of context and when architecture is delivered like humor, it points out …

Los Días De La Calle Gabino Barreda: The Social Circle Of Remedios Varo And Benjamin Péret In Mexico, 1941-1947, Esther R. Levy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the social circle of Surrealist exiles that formed at the home of Remedios Varo and Benjamin Péret on Calle Gabino Barreda between 1941 and 1947. This group is immortalized in Gunther Gerzso’s painting Los Días de la Calle Gabino Barreda (1944) and includes Gerzso, Varo, Péret, Esteban Francés, and Leonora Carrington. This thesis argues that the environment cultivated on Calle Gabino Barreda provided these artists with a place to expand on what they learned in Europe to develop their Surrealist practice in Mexico.

Leonora Carrington’S "Down Below": Transgressive Renderings Of The Grotesque Female Body, Kelsey King

Theses and Dissertations

The classification of the bodily grotesque relies on the transgression of boundaries, marked by an openness to the world. Leonora Carrington’s memoir (1944) and painting (1940) that share the same name, Down Below, illustrate the grotesque body as a revisionist self-configuration, destabilizing traditional representations and eroticization of the female form.

(Not) Knowing, Jared Friedman

Theses and Dissertations

Jared Friedman’s work creates monuments out of banal common objects. Through acrylic paintings on- Astroturf, burlap, canvas, and upholstery fabric- he explores the ambiguity of the unremarkable, such as the condenser coils on the back of a refrigerator. In, (Not) Knowing, he parses the difference between knowing and understanding.

The Chicana Mural Movement: A Reclamation Of Mesoamerican Iconography, Jennifer Vander Els

Theses and Dissertations

An examination of the deployment of indigenous Mexica iconography by Chicana artists during the Chicano Mural Movement. The ethno-national concept of Aztlan, corn and Corn Women, and the deities Coatlicue and Coyolxauhqui were restructured in Chicana murals to uplift and recognize the achievements of the women of the Chicano community.

To Love, And To Be Loved: The Art And Relationships Of Gwen John (1876-1939), Karina Grady

Theses and Dissertations

Extremely close kinships that lasted decades, love affairs with other artists, a patron who fulfilled both her financial and cerebral needs, and a lifelong creative curiosity: these are the distinct relationships Gwen John carried throughout her life and, I maintain, that her art should be viewed as their reflection.

Making And Taking: Evaluating The Ethnographic Gaze In Graciela Iturbide’S Los Que Viven En La Arena, Lauren Gonzales

Theses and Dissertations

Graciela Iturbide’s career-defining engagement with indigenous subjects began with a commission by the Mexican government's Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI) to document the Seri people. This thesis contextualizes the resulting photobook, Los que viven en la arena (1981), within the history of indigenous representation in Mexico and the controversial policies of the INI.

The Sound Of The Civil War: Examining The Intersection Between Music And Emotion In America, 1861-1865, Christina Cannon

Campus Research Day

The topics of the history of music and the history of music intersect in the Civil War in fascinating ways. Both religious music and “secular” music were seen to have great power over their listeners, potentially with the power to alter the directions of lives or their salvation status. Music was used both as a mode of rebellion against the antagonizing army and ideal and a rebellion against unnecessarily violent acts. Each side used it against the other, but a select few also used it against the war itself. Soldiers marched to music, set camp to music, and fought to …

Polished Memories: Zhang Xiaogang’S Bloodline: Big Family No. 3 And The Ideal Family Of The Cultural Revolution, Abby Wiggins

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

Zhang Xiaogang’s series of paintings, Bloodline, is a strange, surreal, and haunting collection of family portraits. As a Chinese artist who was young during the Cultural Revolution of the 60s and 70s, Zhang has a complicated relationship with his own national history. The paintings of Bloodline are not photorealistic portraits; rather, they are constructions coming from within his mind, returning to these memories and feelings decades later. This essay examines Big Family No. 3, a painting for this series done in 1995, exploring the influences and processes that contributed to its creation. It argues that this work in …

"A Decorator In The Best Sense": Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, Lilly Reich, The Fabric Curtain Partition, And The Articulation Of The German Modern Interior, Marianne E. Eggler-Gerozissis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Contributing to the burgeoning study of the domestic interior, a field of inquiry existing in the interstices of architecture, design, interior decoration, and material culture, this dissertation presents a thematic study of the modern domestic interiors of German/American architect/designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1965) designed in collaboration with fellow German architect/designer Lilly Reich (1885–1947) during the 1920s and early 1930s in Weimar Germany. Inspired by a revealing but hitherto overlooked statement by Philip Johnson in the catalogue for the influential 1932 International Style exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York that referred to Mies as “a …

Developing Mexico: History, Architecture, Photography, And Esther Born’S The New Architecture In Mexico, Tyler Considine

Theses and Dissertations

Esther Born’s The New Architecture in Mexico (1937) presents the first survey of Mexican modern architecture and documents early works by Luis Barragán, Juan O’Gorman, among other Mexican modernists. This thesis examines Born’s architectural photography alongside that of Lola Álvarez Bravo, Guillermo Kahlo, and other photographers and within discourses of modernity, history, and representation.

Artist-Scholar: Tradition And Modernity In The Work Of Tseng Yuho, Jennie Tang

Theses and Dissertations

Chinese American artist-scholar Tseng-Yuho (1925-2017) developed an original, modern style called dsui hua based on her extensive knowledge of traditional Chinese ink art and scroll mounting techniques, Chinese and Western art history, and experiences living in or travelling to mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Paris, Hawai‘i, and New York.

Realisms And The Body After War: Document, Truth, And Critique In Postrevolutionary Mexico And Weimar Germany, Eliana Blechman

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines realisms and representations of the body in postrevolutionary Mexico, using the critical framework surrounding Neue Sachlichkeit and post-World War I Weimar society as a comparative model. Through imagery of soldiers, women, and class disparity, artists utilized realisms to relay record, suggest truth, and create criticism.

Ernesto Deira, Rogelio Polesello, And The Esso Salons Of 1964–65, Jonas Albro

Theses and Dissertations

This investigation analyzes artworks by Argentinian painters Rogelio Polesello and Ernesto Deira shown in the Argentinian Esso Salon of 1964 and the International Esso Salon the following year in Washington D.C. at the Museum of the Pan American Union (PAU), and the complex networks of internationalization represented therein.

Manifesting Magic: Occultism And Feminism In The Art Of Leonora Carrington And Remedios Varo, Margaret Dirschl

MA Theses

The artworks of Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo are replete with
symbolism and evocations of the occult, formulating bodies of work that are charged with magic and mysticism. When studied within the context of their male contemporaries of the Surrealist group, it becomes apparent that this use of the occult operates as a compelling and historically based feminist strategy. Immediately stemming from the occult revival of the previous century and the issues for females presented by Surrealism, the foundations of this idea originate much earlier in the pagan traditions of antiquity and the witch hunts of the 15th through 18th …