History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

Un-Done: The Historiographical Dialogue Between Past And Present, Rachel Cobler Wollert

Masters Theses

Art critic for The Nation and professor of at Columbia, Arthur C. Danto led the charge with his essay “The End of Art” in 1984 to declare the end of art. Thirty-eight years later, the awareness of colonial problematics in the elite institutionalism of art history today warrants a reanalysis of art historical ontologies of progress (and their ties to colonialism), which have seemingly disbanded in the discipline’s current rhetoric. Because Danto’s historical framework to end art focuses on progress through artistic means, does it fall short or even negate itself by missing the deconstruction of colonial afterlives ...

The Ephemerality Of The Living And The Persistence Of The Inanimate, Erin Johnston

MFA in Visual Art

I create fragile, sculptural works with paper. Either cast from pre-existing objects or constructed forms, my three-dimensional works ultimately become pure paper objects. I use the visual language of absence, memory, ruin and ephemerality to present modern artifacts and address the now. I am interested in how the manufactured crumbs we leave behind as a species reveal our collective desires, and our relationship to the body and mortality. I am fascinated with, and even enchanted by, the proliferation of material objects and their tendency to surpass the lifespan of any single human. Perhaps this behavior of producing lasting creations is ...

Pop/Art: The Birth Of Underground Music And The British Art School, 1960–1980, Andrew Cappetta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Pop/Art: The Birth of Underground Music and the British Art School, 1960-1980” argues that the British art school became a training ground for underground musicians in the 1960s and the 1970s because of changes in art school pedagogy and policy in the post-war period. New educational philosophies propagated during the late 1950s and 1960s, above all Basic Design and Behaviorism, redefined the artist as an intermedial experimenter, collapsed distinctions between fine art and design, and theorized the art object as a dynamic and interactive matrix between the maker and viewer. These initiatives, which evolved from art school reforms that ...

North Of The Grid: The Black Experience Of 17th -19th Century Rural New York City, Stephanie E. Barnes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the United States, transatlantic slavery was a racial project and template for race-making which created a country that relied on institutions that were organized and performed through social stratification. Today, the nation still operates on systemically racist institutions that have benefited whites while disadvantaging ‘others.’ The narratives presented in American history are rooted in whiteness and benefit the white community while marginalizing nonwhites. Over two hundred years of slavery history in this country has been purposely manipulated and left out. My research focuses on using an historical archaeological framework to research and share the lives of free and enslaved ...

In Memoriam Of Laura Ramírez Palacio (1988–2022), Paula Barreiro López

Artl@s Bulletin

In memoriam of Laura Ramírez Palacio, who passed away in April 2022.

Beside Yingzao: An Index Of Chinese Building Traditions, Tianyi Hang

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

Yingzao referred to the Chinese architectural practice prior to the nineteenth-century introduction of the term jianzhu, the translation of “architecture.” The earliest preserved illustrated government-issued building standard was titled Yingzao fashi. Published by the Southern Song government in 1103, Yingzao fashi defined and regulated technical terms used to describe imperial construction as well as specified the labor costs of certain building techniques. These terms inform our understanding of the traditional Chinese way of categorization and knowledge system of architecture and architectural elements.

Titled “Beside Yingzao,” this study takes the technical terms from Yingzao fashi to guide the reader in investigating ...

Degree Of Satisfaction Of Elderly About The Services Provided To Them In Social Care Houses In White Beds Association, Yousef Mohammed Al-Shurman, Ferdous Hasan Omari

Al-Balqa Journal for Research and Studies البلقاء للبحوث والدراسات

This study aims at identifying the degree of satisfaction of the elderly about the (social, health, entertainment, psychological) services provided to them in social care houses. The sample of the study includes all residents of the White Beds Association for the care of the elderly in Amman. The researcher designed a questionnaire to use in the interviews with the elderly. The questionnaire has four items, and each item includes a group of questions about the service provided to them. The researcher interviewed all the members of the White Beds Association, whose health condition allowed this, (75 elderly people: 44 men ...

Meet Me In The Middle Ages: Engaging With Fantasy, Reality, And Collaborative World-Building, Amanda Greene

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This critical essay accompanies and describes my thesis project, Medievalia Miscellany, a magazine for middle-grade readers which explores the world of medieval fantasy through art, comics, stories, and activities. Throughout the essay, I use my own term “archaeological upcycling” to discuss and explore a variety of relationships between ideas of parts and a whole. I then use it to characterize the way stories are created out of many different parts and how these parts help a reader to relate to both the world of the story and the world in which they live. I describe the genre of medieval fantasy ...

The Hidden Power Of Images: An Allegory Of Chaos And Performance In The Digital Age, Livia Xandersmith

MFA in Visual Art

Within this text, I explore the hidden power of images in American visual culture through painting-based installations. I investigate images of the past and present juxtaposed in a surrealist landscape. Through the use of images in the news, entertainment, advertising, and images within the home, I depict how the problems of the past bleed into our perceptions of the present. I find that this cycle of problem inheritance connects us as humans regardless of time, generation, and place. In my work, I explore the complexity of image culture and its shifting presence within the digital age. Using surrealist collage, I ...

Echoed Sites And The Unknowable Object, Joseph Canizales

MFA in Visual Art

This thesis will discuss the expanded field of sculpture, simulacra, digital technology, and two terms I’ve devised: the unknowable object, and echoed sites. Within these two terms, I’m concerned with the complicated relationship between humans and geology and how we extract material from the ground without reflecting on the geologic history of the site. In echoed sites I create sculptures with and without a geologic site or object, by way of digital technology. These forms display two states paradoxically in balance, where what’s presented leaves more questions than answers. Thus, as part of echoed sites, exists the ...

Review Of The The Closet: The Eighteenth-Century Architecture Of Intimacy, By Danielle Bobker, Mary Peace

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

No abstract provided.

Monuments Are For The Living: The Confederate Mound Monument And The Falsehood Of Reconciliation Statues, Janelle O'Malley

Student Projects

In 2015 the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) began tracking Confederate symbol usage in the United States, namely focusing on confederate flags and monuments. That same year a white supremacist fatally shot nine Black worshippers at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. The shooter in this case had confederate symbols all over their home. This sparked conversation nationally about confederate symbolism and its true purpose. In turn, the conversation led to highly contested debates on confederate monuments and statues. Between 2015 and 2020, 148 confederate statues were removed from the public eye. But the most ...

Sanctuary: The-Construction Of Communion, Carlos Salazar-Lermont

MFA in Visual Art

This thesis narrates the development of the multimedia art installation called Sanctuary. I unwrap the theoretical background of my practice, which is rooted in the theories of deconstruction by Jacques Derrida, and the rhizome theory by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. I approach my creative process as a grammatic of matter, space, and time, constructing meaning through an interplay of significants that connect to political, social, economic, and cultural implications. In the case of Sanctuary, I sought to create a path of empathy towards Venezuelan refugees in St. Louis, Missouri through the exploration of the concept of communion. This idea ...

Framing Colonialism: An Analysis Of Kent Monkman’S Mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People), Jasen D. Evoy

The Confluence

The 2019 diptych mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) by Kent Monkman is one of a series of recent commissions by the Metropolitan Museum in New York granted to diverse artists, shifting the Museum’s focus to a broader, inclusive, and global scope. Monkman’s large scale paintings are site specific, exploring interactions between the work and the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum. The work uses visual quotation to connect to historical works within the collection of the Met, thereby commenting on the legacy of colonialism and subsequent impacts on Native peoples and cultures. The analysis of the work focuses on ...

Using Color To Identify Neotropical Parrots In Early Modern European Art: Recognizing Limitations And Avoiding Pitfalls Through Integration Of Scientific And Artistic Knowledge, Deniz Martinez

The Confluence

Colorful Neotropical parrots were amongst the first and most frequent exotic animals to be imported by Europeans from the “New World” of the Americas, becoming key figures in what would become known as the Columbian exchange. There has been an ongoing effort to locate and identify images of Neotropical parrots in the visual record of early modern Europe, with the classification of many remaining unsettled in the scholarship. Proper identification of these images can be valuable data for reconstructing historical biogeography and transatlantic trade; especially compelling is the potential of certain “mystery parrots” in the visual record to support the ...

Prometheus & The Body Beautiful: Arno Breker And The Weaponization Of The Greco-Roman Tradition In The Größe Deutsche Kunstausstellung, Sophia Maldonado

Student Research Submissions

During the Third Reich (1933-1945), Hitler and the Nazis turned to the visual arts as a tool for propaganda to promote Hitler’s conception of the ideal people, i.e. the ‘Aryan’ race. Rooted in a calculate understanding of Greco-Roman civilization and culture, this conception of the ideal appropriated the visual vocabulary of the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Within the 1937 inaugural exhibition of the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung, a propagandistic effort designed to promote this ideal, Arno Breker, chief sculptor of the Nazi Party, would exhibit his Prometheus. Breker’s interpretation of this mythological figure stood as a representation ...

Partisan Genealogies: Radical Visual (And Political) Practices. An Introduction, Paula Barreiro López

Artl@s Bulletin

This special issue has been conceived in the framework of the project Ré.Part. - Résistance(s) Partisane(s): Culture visuelle, imaginaires collectifs et mémoire révolutionnaire (Université Grenoble Alpes, ANR-15-IDEX-02) and the research project MoDe(s) – Decentralized Modernities: Art, Politics and Counterculture in the Transatlantic Axis during the Cold War (Universidad de Barcelona, HAR2017-82755-P).
We are very thankful for the support of the Jean Monnet Excellence Centre IMAGO (École normale supérieure - Université Paris Sciences Lettres, co-funded by the Erasmus + Program of the European Union) and of the Laboratoire de Recherches Historiques Rhône Alpes.
Many thanks to the editorial team of Artl ...

Ressusciter La Lutte Antifasciste: Art, Politique Et Mémoire Entre La Guerre Civile Et L'Espagne D’Aujourd’Hui, Paula Barreiro López

Artl@s Bulletin

Prenant pour point de départ l’œuvre Resurrección de Núria Güell (2013), cet article aborde le rôle que les artistes contemporains ont assumé, en Espagne, dans la contestation du passé fasciste. Il traite les politiques de terreur mises en œuvre pendant et après la guerre civile, ainsi que la résistance antifasciste pendant la dictature, menée par le maquis, mais aussi par des artistes associés à des organisations d’extrême gauche. Enfin, il réintègre l’œuvre de Güell dans un contexte de création militant de son époque où l’on cherchait à réactiver l’antifascisme face aux survivances structurelles du franquisme ...

Antifascism And Wildness. “Partisan Ecologies” Between The Spanish Civil War And The Global Warming Era, Jaime Vindel

Artl@s Bulletin

This short essay uses the concept of “partisan ecologies” in order to analyse certain past and present chapters on the relationship between anti-fascism and nature. According to the Swedish eco- Marxist Andreas Malm, wilderness has not only represented an essentialist idea resulting from the projections of conservationist environmentalism about a supposedly untouched nature, but has also been one of the real spaces of a modern antagonism. Taking this theoretical point of departure, the text describes the Alpine Battalion of the Sierra del Guadarrama during the Spanish Civil War and its resonances in some contemporary events.

Infancia Y Revolución. Reflexiones Sobre La Figura Del Niño Combatiente Dentro De Las Narrativas Visuales Revolucionarias Y De Liberación A Partir Los Casos De Nicaragua Y El Salvador En La Década De 1980, Laura Ramírez Palacio

Artl@s Bulletin

Tomando como punto de partida el caso de imágenes referentes a los procesos revolucionarios en Nicaragua y El Salvador durante la década de 1980, el presente artículo reflexiona sobre antecedentes en la historia de las revoluciones, donde la incorporación de los niños no solo fue una realidad, sino también un elemento simbólico asociado a la idea de liberación en pos de una transformación social duradera en el tiempo. De este modo el texto analiza y busca situar la figura del niño combatiente dentro de las narrativas visuales revolucionarias y de liberación en la historia reciente de Occidente.