Contemporary Art Commons^™

A Dumb Mouth From Which The Teeth Have Been Pulled, Anna Sofie Jespersen

Theses and Dissertations

This paper consists of a series of scenes in which various narratives with proximity to the truth plays out. within it I aim to articulate the dispersed subjectivity and forensic aspects to my work, as well looking at the perverseness in the desire for proximity to the fantasy, utilizing the self as a vehicle of desire.

Posthumous Painting: On Pigment And Binder, Jameson G. Magrogan

Theses and Dissertations

Modernism brought about a logical culmination of painting, an epoch where logic and reason can no longer attempt to account for or speculate its behavior. This paper considers the perpetuation of painting from an ontological standpoint, documenting its inherent aporia, its relationship to meaning, and its function in contemporary society.

Yankee Go Home: Roci In Latin America, Vitoria Hadba

Theses and Dissertations

In 1984, at an event hosted by the United Nations, American artist Robert Rauschenberg announced his most ambitious and controversial project to date: the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange—or ROCI. Blending primary source documents with social art history, I retrace the artist’s steps—and missteps—during the first leg of his tour through Mexico, Chile, and Venezuela. This thesis investigates the convoluted political implications of ROCI in Latin America during the transitional period in which binary Cold War politics were ebbing amidst the rise of a global free-market economy.

Pepón Osorio And Merián Soto: Multidisciplinary Collaborations, From 1985 To 1995, Zuna Maza

Theses and Dissertations

This paper assesses Pepón Osorio and Merián Soto’s collaborative multidisciplinary works created from 1985 to 1995. Underdiscussed in their individual scholarships, these joint works are reexamined through their collaborative approach, multidisciplinary framework, and their thematic explorations of the nuances of culturally specific subject matter.

Art And Environmental Racism In The United States: Through The Works Of Latoya Ruby Frazier, Pope.L, And Mel Chin, Veronika Anna Molnár

Theses and Dissertations

Through the works of LaToya Ruby Frazier, Pope.L, and Mel Chin, this thesis examines the ways in which artists address environmental racism in the United States. Focusing on three locations with majority Black populations and significant toxic hazards, this paper demonstrates artists’ agency to alleviate crises caused by environmental injustice.

Kinstitution: A Topia Between Archive And Proposal, Christopher Lineberry

Theses and Dissertations

Situating Topher Lineberry's work, this paper offers a primer on institutional critique, preliminary developments of "kinstitutional critique," and the cultivation of family-derived art history through the work of the artist's grandmother, Helen Lineberry. Feeding into a working understanding of family-and-kin-as-institution, the paper ultimately locates Topher Lineberry's work between relations to place, historical archives, and speculative proposals.

Some (Im)Material Girls, Living In (Im)Material Worlds, With Seeds, Stars, And Shit, Matthew Weiderspon

Theses and Dissertations

This writing situates material and gestural vocabularies cultivated in my artwork in relation to my lived experience; primarily my rural upbringing in Colorado. Scattered floor dispersals, calling sounds, and bodily movements desire reconsiderations of hope in precarity through a disorientation of place, association, scale, and language.

Structures Of Time: Expressions Of Subjectivity And Social Politics In Works By Silvia Gruner, 1986–2014, Silvia Sampaio De Alencar

Theses and Dissertations

The works of Silvia Gruner (born 1959) illustrate the use of time registers as strategies to express contemporary subjectivity’s experiences with globalized environments between 1986-2014. Through this approach, the artist connects her production to the social politics of Mexico to critique the effects of globalization on Mexican society and culture.

Double Documents: Imaging And Installation In Sturtevant’S “Duchamps”, Chris Murtha

Theses and Dissertations

The artist Sturtevant produced exacting but inherently distinct recreations of artworks only recently completed by her contemporaries. This thesis examines the body of work she created after Marcel Duchamp between 1966 and 1973, and how that work reveals the central and entwined roles of photography and installation in her practice.

Drowning In Our Tears, Kelley-Ann A. Lindo

Theses and Dissertations

Drowning in our Tears is a series of works – installation, print media, and sculpture that explores themes of precarity, ephemerality, collective memory, and vulnerability. The need to create and preserve an archive has been the of the driving forces behind the works. I am interested in this notion of creating new language and perspectives from past trauma and hardships. The archive presents us with a site where excavation of meaning can occur, identities preserved, and new identities formed. In my work, I try to bridge the gaps, using the fragments of memory, the past and present experiences to create …

Earth Tone Sigh Spell, Martha Glenn

Theses and Dissertations

A written accompaniment to the artist’s thesis exhibition titled Earth Tone Sigh Spell, conceived during the years 2020-21 and installed at The Anderson Gallery, Richmond from May 1–15, 2021.

The following thesis explores themes of personal memory, geo-theory, myth, symbol, and historical event. The artist uses research and stream of consciousness writing methods as a way to weave these concepts together and tie them back to her own practice with installation, sculpture, and new media.

Beyond The Social: Artist Project Spaces, 2003 To 2016., Clare L. Van Loenen

Theses and Dissertations

This research examines storefront project spaces in the early 2000s that offered alternative approaches to the programming, organizing, and archiving found in conventional museums. I propose that such sites impacted participatory visual culture by offering a reformulatory role for arts’ practices, one that organized itself across disciplinary boundaries, chose a collaborative rather than competitive approach, and processed the ideological implications of their group work. Focused on three specific sites—Machine Project in Los Angeles, Elsewhere in Greensboro, and Mess Hall in Chicago—this study details the museological, pedagogical, and archival challenges of these artist-convened organizations. My interdisciplinary investigation offers a reference point …