Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Leonard Freed's Black In White America, Jennifer Cherry Wilkinson

Theses and Dissertations

Through a dynamic range of photographs and texts from the 1960s, Leonard Freed’s Black in White America is an exceptional artwork that both illustrates the numerous ways the photo book format creates meaning and provides an alternate history of the Civil Rights movement and the lives of those impacted by it.

Gertrudes Altschul And The Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante: Modern Photography And Femininity In 1950s São Paulo, Paula V. Kupfer

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the work of German-born Brazilian photographer Gertrudes Altschul, who developed a body of modernist photography within the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante (FCCB) in São Paulo in the 1950s. It underscores her female and immigrant perspective during the transition from Pictorialist to modernist photography in the postwar years.

Eco Ephemeral: Works By Thomas Ferrella & Artists’ Books From Special Collections, Uw-Milwaukee Libraries, Pamela Caserta Hugdahl

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis essay and accompanying exhibition approach environmental concerns through an art historical perspective by considering works of art by Thomas Ferrella, M.D. and artists’ books from Special Collections at UW-Milwaukee Libraries. The exhibition evades conventional boundaries of galleries in order to present artists’ books in their intended manner and to display Ferrella’s outdoor installations in context with UWM’s award-winning sustainability initiatives. The results exemplify how we shape earth and in turn how our actions upon earth impact us, emphasizing human interdependence on fragile ecosystems. Ferrella’s artworks and medical expertise in combination with the content in the artists’ books and …

Meaning In Motion, Kara Hendrickson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis essay and accompanying exhibition examine the capacity of interactive art to stage situations for participants to explore embodiment. In presenting the four-part interactive suite "Body Language" by Nathaniel Stern, the exhibition invites viewers to engage with digital projections that track and respond to movement by producing animated text and spoken utterances. Through the juxtaposition of motion performed by the viewer’s physical body with computer-generated words and speech, "Body Language" explores the complex ways in which the body and language depend upon each other to create and communicate meaning. This essay also proposes that the gallery uses its power …

“Sparks Fly ”: Connecting Midwestern Historic Forts Through A Comparative Study Of Gunflints, Jeffrey A. Spanbauer

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will outline the temporal changes and choices of colonial powers and individuals as expressed at historic frontier posts in the Midwest between 1683 and 1779 as expressed through their supply and usage of gunflints. Gunflints exist as persistent artifacts at historic sites, and especially so at fortifications like Fort de Chartres, Fort St. Joseph, Fort Michilimackinac and Fort Ouiatenon. These sites exist within the same chronological timeframe, from 1690-1780, and saw occupation by both the French and British, with nearby indigenous groups, and should serve as instructive means to investigate the factors involved in the supply, selection, and …

Out The Window: The Coalescence Of Internal And External Space, Micah Allen Zavacky

Theses and Dissertations

Out the Window: The Coalescence of Internal and External Space is a supportive statement for an exhibition of prints, drawings, and paintings that begin with direct observation. Building on Yi-Fu Tuan’s distinctions of space and place, I examine how these terms reflect my subjective interpretations of objective subject matters. Landscape, still life in domestic interiors, and garden subjects, as observed and interpreted in the prints, drawings, and paintings, not only reveal the shifting roles of space and place but also the ongoing processes of change occurring both externally in the observed environment and internally in my response to it.

Decorative Turkey Callmakers: Artists Or Craftsmen, Lauren E. Virgo

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the history of the wild turkey call and the role of decorative callmakers in the world of art and craft. Is a turkey callmaker an artist or a craftsman? Are their decorative turkey calls works of art or works of craft? This debate is explored via the decorative turkey calls that have won the Decorative Turkey Call Best of Show portion of the National Wild Turkey Federation’s Grand National Callmaking Competition. These winning turkey calls are currently on display at the NWTF’s Winchester Museum in Edgefield, South Carolina.

The National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) is a non-profit …

Toilet Talk, Michael Blake

Theses and Dissertations

Toilet Talk explores both formal and autobiographical themes related to desire, sexuality, and the relationship between public and private space. My work and research aims to reposition and queer the industrial object and its promotion of hyper masculine ideals.

Sanitation Celebrations: Mierle Laderman Ukeles’S Performative Monument With/For/By Sanmen, Diya Vij

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s work teaches us something new about what monument-making can be when it is socially engaged. The durational process and motivating desire to elicit gratitude for the DSNY labor force of Ukeles’s residency in the Sanitation Department raises pressing questions about the conventional nature of how monuments are typically conceived and executed and to whom these works are directed. Analysis of her three-part performance Sanitation Celebrations: Grand Finale of New York City’s First Art Parade, just one engagement within her long-term performative monument, explicates the intricacies of Ukeles’s process-based performative practice in terms …

A Fearsome Beauty: Material And Cultural Exchange Between Venice And The Islamic Near East, Tahera H. Tajbhai

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will explore the relationship between Venice and the Islamic Near East. By examining works from various media, this paper argues that Venetians viewed the Islamic Near East as being ‘awesome,’ and that this view was twofold, as Venetians were both enamored with and fearful of this rising power.

Dag Hammarskjöld And Modern Art: An Inquiry Into The Aesthetic Values Of The Second Secretary-General Of The United Nations, Shantala M. Dugay

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents original research and previously unpublished information that breaks new ground in the legacy of United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld. By providing a new historical perspective of Hammarskjöld’s aesthetic values, this study forges a place for him in art history as a patron and collector of modern art.

Magazine Politics: Edgardo Antonio Vigo’S Diagonal Cero And Hexágono ‘71, Francisco Javier Rivero Ramos

Theses and Dissertations

This research looks at the magazines Diagonal Cero (28 issues, 1962 – 1968) and Hexágono ‘71 (14 issues, 1971 – 1974) edited by Edgardo Antonio Vigo (La Plata, Argentina 1928 – La Plata, 1997) in order to examine the forms of political commentary incorporated into the magazines.

The Artist And The "Information" Machine: Conceptualism, Technology, And Design In 1970, Jeremiah William Mccarthy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the dialectical relationship between conceptualism and design in the year 1970, by focusing on Kynaston McShine’s landmark exhibition Information, held at the Museum of Modern Art. Specifically, it centers on the understudied “information machine,” a film apparatus designed by Ettore Sottsass, Jr., for use within the exhibition.

Photographing The "Uncelebrated" Truth: The Newspaper Pm, New York 1940-1942, Nancy Wechter

Theses and Dissertations

The left-liberal NYC newspaper, PM, used photography with unprecedented transparency as a crucial element in its mission to inform ordinary working people, teach them to be literate about the photographic message, and encourage them to be a participating audience during the tense period just before World War II.

David Alfaro Siqueiros’S Pivotal Endeavor: Realizing The “Manifiesto De New York” In The Siqueiros Experimental Workshop Of 1936, Emily Schlemowitz

Theses and Dissertations

The Siqueiros Experimental Workshop, initiated by David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974) in 1936, is often considered a pivotal moment for the artist. This thesis unveils new documentation about the Workshop, illuminating heretofore-unobserved aspects of the group’s governance, political aims, and theoretical framework put forth by Siqueiros in his critical “Manifiesto de New York.”

Gender Politics, Presence And Erasure: Tattoo In In Pursuit Of Venus [Infected] And Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique, Emily Cornish

Theses and Dissertations

This paper utilizes tattoo as a means for exploring the dialogue between contemporary Maori artist Lisa Reihana’s In Pursuit of Venus [infected] and Joseph Dufour’s nineteenth-century decorative wallpaper Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique. I argue that the tattooed body constitutes a re-insertion or re-infection within the pictorial program of In Pursuit of Venus [infected]. As such, tattoo becomes one focal point which allows us to work through four themes investigated by these two artworks: gender identity and ambiguity vis a vis practices that concern bodily adornment, the mutability of looking practices from one culture to another, encounters between different …

Colorscapes: Marko Spalatin 1970-2001, Jacqueline Murphy

Theses and Dissertations

Artist and printmaker Marko Spalatin (b. 1945) is known for his ability to capture the transitory optical effect of color and light through the interaction of geometric forms in space. His career developed from concepts of the 1960s Op art movement, which produced a heightened viewing experience of the work of art rather than focusing on content. This movement drew on modernism’s interests in breaking traditional academic definitions that viewed color as an extraneous addition, and shifted toward the depiction of color as having its own sense of form and dynamism. Spalatin established his style by creating highly colored surfaces …

Comic Cuts: The Satirical Prints Of Warrington Colescott, Nicholas William Pipho

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper I examine the work of prominent Wisconsin printmaker Warrington Colescott, based on the social and political context he was working in during the second half of the twentieth century. Colescott is known for his satirical intaglio prints that address a wide range of topics including American history, contemporary politics, and the history of art. In this paper I focus specifically on three topics that he addressed in his prints: protest, war and the military, and the environment. My study relies heavily on archival interviews with the artist, as well as research undertaken for exhibitions of Colescott’s work, …

Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski: Political Struggle And Metaphor, Marin Kniskern

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the role that political metaphor plays in the artwork of Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski (1849 – 1915), a Polish painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He studied in Poland and later at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, where he was known for paintings of the everyday lives of rural, Polish people. Later in his career, he delved into historical and romantic subjects, most notably the Cossacks, an East Slavic, semi-military people with deep roots in Poland. In the eighteenth century, Poland was conquered and partitioned by the imperial powers of Russia, Prussia, and Austria. During …

Tara Bogart: Modern Hair Studies, Kathleen Tousignant

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

TARA BOGART: MODERN HAIR STUDIES

by

Kathleen Tousignant

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2016

Under the Supervision of Professor Jennifer Johung

This exhibition and accompanying catalogue explore Tara Bogart’s modern hair study photographs. Compiled of 28 photographs from 3 different series, Modern Hair Studies examines the correlation between hair and identity. The faceless portraits from her series A Modern Hair Study and Un Capillaire Modern Etude showcase the ways in which millennial women use hair colors, hairstyles, and body art as a form of self-expression. When viewed as a group, the portraits serve as a visual and demographic representation of …

Gaslight, Melis Agabigum

Theses and Dissertations

Gaslight is an exploration of the psychological phenomena of “gaslighting” in abusive relationships. Sensations of disorientation, insecurity, and the overwhelming feeling of being trapped are metaphorically imbued in the soft sculptural objects installed within the confines of the gallery space. In conjunction with the crocheted soft sculptures, the use of fabricated shadows also manipulates the viewer into questioning the physical truth of the art objects.

Reality is further blurred as the objects extend their capacity of occupying space, drawing the viewer in to inspect whether or not the shadows that they are seeing are true projections or ghosts from previous …

Woodland Period Rockshelter Use In The Upper Great Lakes: A Multiscalar Perspective From Grand Island, Michigan, Kelsey Hanson

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the integral role that caves and rockshelters have traditionally played in archaeological inquiry throughout North America, they have largely been neglected as a focus of study and recorded examples have been poorly integrated into regional discourse in the Upper Great Lakes region. Most rockshelters in the Upper Great Lakes region formed as sea caves during higher lake level stages and became increasingly terrestrial as lake levels receded, resulting in an abundance of rockshelters and other shoreline features that are now inland from the current shoreline, very few of which have been subjected to archaeological investigation.

To address this disparity, …

Spatial Organization Of Lithic Technology At The Mather-Klauer Lodge Site: A Terminal Woodland Occupation On Grand Island, Michigan, Andrew L. Mallo

Theses and Dissertations

The Mather-Klauer Lodge site is a Terminal Woodland (c.a. AD 600- AD 1600) occupation of the west side of Grand Island, Michigan, where Echo Creek empties into Lake Superior. Excavations by Illinois State University field schools and the Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group identified a buried, compact, greasy living surface containing four hearth features, a storage pit, and over 20,000 pieces of lithic debitage. Analysis of the lithic assemblage shows that the organization of lithic technology at the Mather-Klauer Lodge site utilized the bipolar reduction technique to reduce locally available quartz cobbles with the goal of producing flakes of various shapes …

Using A Visitor Based Framework To Observe Engagement In A Children's Museum Makerspace, Sara Mccubbins

Theses and Dissertations

Many challenges still exist in finding ways to measure the impact of informal learning environments. Much of the research that does exist is anecdotal in nature and examines engagement by intuition or informal feedback. The purpose of this concurrent mixed methods study was to better understand engagement and learning by converging both quantitative and qualitative data. In the study, an observation protocol was used to measure the engagement levels of children in a museum makerspace, and field notes were collected to explore the context in which this engagement takes place. The observation protocol used in this dissertation was the Visitor …

Betwixt: Temporality And Comfort, Laura Newman

Theses and Dissertations

I push against traditions of ceramics by purposefully inviting breakage within my work. Destruction expresses fragility, temporality, and impermanence. I consider themes of frugality, familial relations, collections and nostalgia through my investigations of clay, steel, and glass.

Nothing Behind The Sun, Sebastian Fierro Castro

Theses and Dissertations

painting as a containment exercise, and as such, a tool that allows us to interiorize the world

Crescendo, Jeffery A. Pabotoy

Theses and Dissertations

Artist Statement

I have always found comfort and warmth in my family. When I am not with them, I find myself clinging to the objects they leave behind as a substitute in their absence. As I began to re-create these objects through paintings and ceramics, I realized that I was creating symbolic portraits of my family. These portraits are tangible family moments preserved in pigment and clay.

In recent years, my siblings were deployed to war and I began to represent them as various instruments. These instruments, both musical and tools of war, chronicle who they were and who they …

Antithetical Commentaries On X, Y And The Disruption Of Being, Eva Rocha

Theses and Dissertations

Through discursive essays and poetic narrative, Antithetical Commentaries on X, Y and the Disruption of Being explores the tenuous relationship between modes of measurement and the struggle for human relevance in the post-contemporary digital age. In the introductory essay, “Not the Feather, but the Bird”, I give an overview of the inherent problems of object-oriented ontology, and how it relates to aesthetics and social issues of our times. In the Developmental Overview, I detail how I developed my installation approach and techniques, particularly with regard to the three-way dynamic of the artist:work:viewer relationship and how it can encourage …

Hidden In Plain Sight: Image, Text, And Social Commentary In Victor Ekpuk's Cartoons For The Daily Times Of Nigeria, 1989-1998, Kaleb W. Jewell

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides an analysis of the cartoons produced by Victor Ekpuk for The Daily Times newspaper of Nigeria from 1989 through 1998 and the artist’s use of ancient nsibidi script to “hide in plain sight” his social commentaries on sociopolitical and economic issues in Nigeria. Victor Ekpuk’s original cartoons within the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art are examined in the context of indigenous masking practices and other indirect methods employed by indigenous comedians to protect themselves. Moreover, the cartoons’ use of caricature and their nsibidi scripts within are argued to provide a connotative …

Cajamarca Ceramic Spoons From Northern Peru: Forming A Symbolic Function, Jeanette Louise Nicewinter

Theses and Dissertations

Ten painted Cajamarca-style ceramic spoons form the foundation for an investigation of the way that these seemingly utilitarian objects were bestowed with economic and symbolic value both within and outside of the borders of the Cajamarca region, located in the north highlands of present-day Peru. Since the ceramic spoons have been recovered from sites associated with large and powerful societies and states, such as the Moche of the north coast and the Wari of the central highlands, an analysis of the form, style and imagery present on these spoons reveals how these objects transcended cultural boundaries. To assess and evaluate …