Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Hype And Hypersexuality: Kara Walker, Her Work And Controversy, Erikka Juliette Searles Dec 2006

Hype And Hypersexuality: Kara Walker, Her Work And Controversy, Erikka Juliette Searles

Art and Design Theses

Kara Walker, winner of the MacArthur “Genius” award and the Smithsonian Lucelia award, is one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary African American artists. Her work, especially her cut-paper silhouettes depicting grotesque antebellum scenes, has inspired as much outrage from an older generation of Black artists as acclaim from the mainstream media. This thesis gives an overview of the artist’s life, analysis of some of her works, and an examination of the controversy her work has caused. In the conclusion, I introduce the next generation of Black American artists, self-proclaimed “Art Stars,” including Atlanta artist Fahamu Pecou.


Janine Antoni: Finding A Room Of Her Own, Stacie M. Lindner Dec 2006

Janine Antoni: Finding A Room Of Her Own, Stacie M. Lindner

Art and Design Theses

Janine Antoni's object- and performance-based works draw from multiple influences including feminism and conceptualism, and in these works the artist has fashioned an investigation of the self through the examination of the mother/child dyad, creating a more than fourteen-year body of work about these relationships that explore the implications of feminine imagery. Antoni’s works are an effort to distinguish her body as a feminine subject-object, but also to identify with as well as separate herself from the mother. While she is a conceptual artist, Antoni puts great emphasis on materiality. For her, the concept defines itself within the materials, and …


The Unconventional Photographic Self-Portraits Of John Coplans, Carla Williams, And Laura Aguilar, Alice Di Certo Jun 2006

The Unconventional Photographic Self-Portraits Of John Coplans, Carla Williams, And Laura Aguilar, Alice Di Certo

Art and Design Theses

Laura Aguilar, John Coplans, and Carla Williams explore, through photographic self-portraiture, the representation of unconventional bodies. Even though the images produced by these artists are quite different in style, they all reflect an interest in a representation of the nude human body that challenges the traditional concepts of beauty so prevalent in a Western society obsessed with physical perfection. Even though the three artists produced their photographic self-portraits at roughly the same time, using the traditional gelatin silver process and responding to standards of classical beauty, their divergent life experiences, education, and social backgrounds have led them to question an …


Paul Renner And Futura: The Effects Of Culture, Technology, And Social Continuity On The Design Of Type For Printing, Charles C. Leonard Jan 2006

Paul Renner And Futura: The Effects Of Culture, Technology, And Social Continuity On The Design Of Type For Printing, Charles C. Leonard

Art and Design Theses

This thesis reviews the circumstances that led to what Paul Renner called “the inflation of historicism,” places his response to that problem in the context of the Weimar Republic, details how the German attributes with which he began the project were displaced from the typeface that emerged in 1927, demonstrates that Futura belongs to a new category of serif-less roman fonts rooted in Arts and Crafts lettering, and considers why the specifically German aspects of the project have gone unrecognized for over seventy years. Renner’s writing is compared to ideas prevalent in early twentieth-century German cultural discourse, and Futura’s design …