Contemporary Art Commons^™

The Auteur As A Critic: Amy Taubin Reviews Steven Soderbergh, Maria B. Bernedo

Senior Projects Fall 2023

In this project, we seek to understand the role of the film critic in the modern world through my favorite film critic: Amy Taubin. As a throughline, we use Steven Soderbergh’s most notable works: Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) and The Knick (2014-15)

We additionally study the role of the auteur, and what its impact is on the development of film criticism. We focus on Taubins career over the last 30 years and its impact on the concepts we have around filmmaking, criticism, and auteurism. Mostly, this is a piece about what passion for cinema will lead different creators to. …

Infinity On Trial: Michael Heizer And The Post-War American Avant-Garde, George Fleming Sutton

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Andy & Edie, Warhol & Sedgwick, Sabine Paris

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

The Familiarity Of Hapticity Overrides The Rationality Of Sight: 'Hair Aesthetics' And Photographic Seeing, Diana Ferrell Mccready

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

I Femminiellə: Unearthing Sanctified Queerness, Francesca Stone Houran

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This project serves as an unearthing, in the figuratively archeological sense, of the religious roots and foundations of queerness, often overlooked in contemporary gender discourses, through the exposing of pre and post-modern queer religious iconography specific to the Neapolitan third-gender community of the femminiellə. Although the femmininellə have origins in a long lineage of non-binary forms and figures throughout global and Italian history, they have been more recently brought to the surface of gender discourses through the avenue of photography, showcased in digital and physical exhibition spaces.

Futurism In The City Of The Future: Marinetti’S Avant-Garde In New York 1909-1930, Giovanni Angelo Falcone

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

This project seeks to explain some of the reasons why it took four decades for Futurism to be recognized and understood in America. Using archival sources and other records from 1909 to 1930, this project charts the entrance of Futurist ideas into America and the reasons why the movement never found a following in the United States. Focusing on the years after the launch of the movement, the Armory Show of 1913, and the 1928-1930 stay of Fortunato Depero, this project argues that there were certain unbridgeable divides between …

The Synthetic Uncanny: Grotesque Aesthetics In Artificial Intelligence Art, Michael William Melchiondo

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Kitchen Rag: Spaces Of Food, Memory And Conviviality In Modern And Contemporary Art, Emma Deutsch

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Sisterhood: : Locating The Photography Of Carrie Mae Weems, Latoya Ruby Frazier, And Deana Lawson Within A Rhizome Of Black Feminist Discourse, Taylor Fama Ndiaye

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Towards A Revised Approach To Designing From The Outside In: Contextualizing The Preliminary Proposal For The Fourth Addition To Bard College Library, Aidan Galloway

Senior Projects Fall 2022

Before creating the new, architects are faced with the existing. An enormous oak tree might be within the bounds of the site you’ve been hired to build a house on. Do you cut it down, or leave it? A tall brick building might be next door. Do you imitate its scale, its materiality, its style, or do you create something that looks entirely different?

These kinds of questions, while perhaps always fundamental to architecture, were especially pertinent in mid-to-late-twentieth century debates surrounding “context” as architects like Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown challenged the conventions of “orthodox” Modern architecture. “Frank …

(Altar)Making A Sacred Latinx Space, Tatiana Pamela Alfaro

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

The Post-1990s Chinese Artists And Their Art: Xin Liu, Wa Liu, And Zipiao Zhang, Yifan Ye

Senior Projects Spring 2021

During the major social-economic transformation, many contemporary Chinese artists, such as Ai Weiwei, Cai Guoqiang, Gu Wenda, and Xu Bing, cautiously articulate the concept of a utopian socialist society in their specific visions. Some may take a more provocative position; while others sometimes create harmony as an approach to the concept. It is likely that the artistic intentions of these artists who experienced the 1989 Tiananmen incident create art with political ambitions. However, in the new decade of the 1990s, China’s economic reforms have already led to the formation of globalization. Artists who were born in the 90s live in …

The Impact Of Dunhuang Murals On Modern And Contemporary Chinese Art, Yuhan Song

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

The Photogram Now And Then: An Investigation Of Contemporary Photogram Practice, Susan Melissa Andreas

Senior Projects Spring 2020

My senior thesis is an investigation of contemporary photograms. My thesis is not meant to be a comprehensive study of photograms but rather a look into how specific uses and treatments of it have evolved since its inception in the nineteenth century. A photogram is a photograph made without a camera. The paper begins with a look into nineteenth-century photogram practice to provide general information and context about photograms. The first chapter outlines when the photogram process was invented, who it invented it, how it was used, what its traditional steps were, and what the images looked like. A description …

The Experiential Museum: Immersive Installation Art In The Age Of Social Media, Emily Hope Anastasi

Senior Projects Spring 2020

From the 1960s to today, immersive installation art has transformed along with new technological development. Artists at the forefront of this movement, such as Yayoi Kusama and James Turrell, paved the way for Instagrammable pop-ups such as the Museum of Ice Cream through their experiential qualities. I have chosen these two artists in particular because of their continuous fit online. Both artists have been titled “The most Instagrammable Artist” as their immersive art installations spread throughout social media. As the pop-up museum trend continues to grow, similarities between the immersive pop-up playgrounds and the multi-sensory environments of these two artists …

Embedded: The Bed As An Art Object, Maya Annika Teich

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

In The Illusory Babels Of Language: Contemporary Artists’ Novels, Gage Pearson Frink

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

It’S Garfield’S World, We Just Live In It: An Exploration Of Garfield The Cat As Icon, Money Maker, And Beast, Iris B. Engel

Senior Projects Fall 2019

No newspaper comic character enjoys a larger international audience than Garfield. While newspaper comics have been infiltrating the homes of readers in the United States since the 1880s, Garfield has made more of an impact than any other. Brought into existence by Jim Davis in Muncie, Indiana in 1978, Garfield has now gone world-wide. Breaking Guinness world records for most syndicated newspaper comic strip, Garfield has made over 800 million dollars in comic sales alone, making it the largest grossing newspaper comic strip to date. Recognized globally, Garfield is an international icon. Despite these laudations, there has never been an …

The Unveiling Of Us, Alexis Parra

Senior Projects Spring 2018

The Unveiling of Us is an affirmation by, of and for wom^n of color. In this collaboration, we - subject and photographer - seek to reclaim the performance, production and beauty of individual identities that are informed by collective pasts. Everyday acts of performance are emphasized in these images through objects and gestures that reference the day to day practices of black and brown wom^n based on our histories, our cultures and our senses of self. This is our space to claim: the viewer looks, but the subjects hold the gaze as they declare power through a notion of beauty. …

Cuban Art In The 1980s, Rebecca Q. Sell

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Gender In Contemporary Iran In The Works Of Abbas Kowsari, Domantas Karalius

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College

The Worth Of Aura In The Work Of Fine Art Publishing, Alexander Kunin Bacon

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

There And Now, Tinghua Huang

Senior Projects Spring 2017

THERE AND NOW

by Tinghua Huang

History/Observation of Life/Rebellion/Challenge/ Time/(without)Intention

In my exhibition, I have photos, bags, garments, the FIT IN room, and a clock with a second display. I will explain my points for choosing to put them in my show, and it is up to you, the viewers, to take it, expand it, or not. I believe there is never a final answer to art, as long as humans have their own ability to think.

I made the choice of putting the photos in my show to convey a straightforward sense of my personal background: where I am …

Rauschenberg's Journey To Dante: Or How To Keep A Clean Head, Maxwell Ian Eric Barnes

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Lifecasting & Ubiquitous Relationships, Alexis Charlotte Williams

Senior Projects Spring 2017

My subjects do not know I exist. They do not know who I am, and they do not know their lives are the center of my painting series. But I know them - at least, I think I do. My acrylic paintings depict people in domestic spaces in specific moments in time. The relationships of person-to-person, person to space, paint to canvas and voyeur to subject drives my obsession to watch and to paint what I see. What I am seeing are a collection of pixels that make up human forms, living rooms, and kitchens. These digital bodies move through …

Recognizing The Parallels Between Fashion And Art: The Designs Of Elsa Schiaparelli, Yves Saint Laurent And Rei Kawakubo, Alexa S. Runsdorf

Senior Projects Spring 2016

My project explores the parallels and overlaps between the worlds of fashion and art through surveying the designs of Elsa Schiaparelli, Yves Saint Laurent and Rei Kawakubo.

Warhol’S Hustler And Queen Assembly Line: Deconstructing Factory Produced Genders And Their Roles In Contemporary Queer Culture, Connor Matthew Marley

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

The Viewing Self: A Reflection On Mirrors As Medium From The 1960s To The Present, Claire H. Demere

Senior Projects Spring 2014

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.