Contemporary Art Commons^™

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

The Influence Of Politics On Modern Art: A Curated Exhibit Of Art Reflecting The 2016 Presidential Election, Naama Malomet

Senior Honors Projects

This project explores the ways in which recent politics in America has inspired contemporary artists to engage in the current political climate and use art as a means of expressing political ideals. Art has been, and always will be, used as one of the ways artists express opinions and ideas. Art engages individuals in visual dialogue, creating conversations between the artist and viewer. It has the power to influence and inspire viewers, directing them towards new ideas and opinions as well as new perspectives on social and political issues. Throughout the history of art, politics and social issues have inspired …

Socially Engaged Practice: Three Artists, Susan Ashbrook

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

In recent years many artists have turned to ‘socially engaged practice,’ striving to effect social or political change through community-based or participatory projects outside of traditional gallery spaces. In my presentation I will review projects by three contemporary artists who work with underserved communities to develop creative responses to social injustices they face and to help them develop powerful tools to impact their lives

Suzanne Lacy, one of the original California feminists of the 1970s, is well-known for her performance pieces and installations that engage with social issues through conversation within communities. Rape and violence against women have been …

Ode To The Sea: Art From Guantanamo, Erin L. Thompson, Charles Shields, Paige Laino

Publications and Research

Exhibition catalogue for “Ode to the Sea: Art from Guantánamo” (October 16, 2017-January 26, 2018, President's Gallery, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York). Detainees at the United States military prison camp known as Guantánamo Bay have made art from the time they arrived. The exhibit displays some of these evocative works, made by eight men: four who have since been cleared and released from Guantánamo, and four who remain there. They paint the sea again and again although they cannot reach it. The catalog includes contributions by Trevor Paglen, Solmaz Sharif, Natasha Trethewey, Jericho Brown, and current and …

The Problem Of Originality In The Work Of Sarah Lucas, Chelsey Burch

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Sarah Lucas is a contemporary British artist known for satirical and often crudely sexual assemblages and photographs. Although she is often celebrated for this brazen imagery, this essay investigates the stark contradictions found between her statements and her work, particularly in contrasting her claims of originality with her similarities to the work of such artists as Louise Bourgeois and Marcel Duchamp. Through analyzing interviews and comparing her work with that of other famous artists throughout modern history, it posits that her strategy entails the purposeful imitation of a variety of inconsistent styles. Her work questions the idea of originality itself …

Exhibition Review: “Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now”, Amy Buono

Art Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Valeska Soares' exhibition titled "Any Moment Now" at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and later the Phoenix Art Museum in 2017 and 2018.

Moocs 2.0: Reviewing N.Paradoxa's Mooc On Contemporary Art And Feminism, Parme Giuntini, Anne Swartz, Kathleen Wentrack

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

This collaboratively written article explores the pedagogical role of MOOCs today through analysis of a MOOC on contemporary art and feminism, created by Katy Deepwell, editor of the international feminist art journal n.paradoxa. Parme Giuntini offers an updated overview of MOOCs and their increasing value as OERs for faculty and students. Feminist art historians Anne Swartz and Kathleen Wentrack investigate the n.paradoxa MOOC from different, but complimentary perspectives. Wentrack explores the structure, documents, and interactivity of the MOOC as a rich source of feminist material useful to both students and scholars. Swartz addresses Deepwell’s international treatment of transnational feminism …

Xu Zhen & Madein Company: The Phenomenon Of Artist-Company, Qianfan Gu

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis is about the phenomenon of "artist-company" -- commercial methodologies employed by contemporary artists are determining their artworks. Taking XuZhen as a case study, it attempts to understand the phenomenon through aspects including art autonomy and institutional theories. It argues that "artist-company" is a continuation of institutional critique.

Rodcon, Flier, 2018, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

RodCon Documents

RodCon 2018

Saturday, April 7th, 2018

10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Flier used in promotion of the event.

Augmented Interventions: Re-Defining Urban Interventions With Ar And Open Data, Conor Mcgarrigle

Books/Book Chapters

This chapter proposes that augmented reality art and open data offer the potential for a redefinition of urban interventionist art practices.

Data has emerged as a significant force in contemporary networked culture from the commercial commodification of online presence as practised by internet giants Facebook and Google to the 2013 revelations of the unprecedented scale of the US Government’s data collection regime carried out by the NSA (Gellman and Piotras, U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program, http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us- internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845- d970ccb04497_story.html, 2013). Big data and its effective deployment is seen as essential to the …

Rodcon, Program, 2018, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

RodCon Documents

Inside This Program:
--Welcome to RodCon
--Locations
--Schedule
--What's That? Event Descriptions
--Artist Alley
--Sponsors
--Autographs

Chuck Close: The Cost Of Behaving Badly, And #Metoo, Rebecca Cohen-Homapour

MA Theses

In July of 2016, artist, Chuck Close was interviewed with a front cover spread in New York Times Magazine to discuss his legendary career. In December of 2017, Close was accused of sexually mistreating women on numerous occasions. This dissertation considers the powerful artist Chuck Close and repercussions following recent accusations against him made by multiple women. It will help us begin to understand how the recent allegations affect art museums and public exhibitions. There is also a discussion analyzing if an artists’ work can be separated from the reputation of its author. A hedonic regression, data analysis and interviews …

Moral Rights: The Economic Ramifications Of Moral Rights Under Vara In The U.S., Akilah Chandler

MA Theses

When balancing the interests of the art market gatekeepers including patrons, dealers, and auction house intermediaries, with the interest of artists, artists have always bared the shorter end of the stick. It has been almost 30 years since the U.S. legal system acknowledged moral rights and a lifetime that artist have had to defend those rights. However, the question remains— how has the art market balanced these conflicting interests and at what expense? This paper will explore the effects moral rights have on an artist’s market and with that, the overall art market. This paper will also cover the ramifications …

The Rococo Revival In Contemporary Porcelain, Ariel Senackerib

MA Theses

The contemporary design market has seen a resurgence of the rococo style. Porcelain has become a popular medium, and artists and designers have been revisiting the possibilities of it by returning to the motifs and symbols of the mid eighteenthcentury. While there is a wealth of existing literature on porcelain manufactories, including Meissen, Sèvres and others, the rococo style is often overlooked in literature for its cultural and theoretical value. The rococo has been given little consideration by art historians, because of its excessive luxury and cultural appropriation. However, many contemporary artists and designers have found new inspiration in the …

Current Issues In The Conservation Of Contemporary Art And Its Non-Traditional Materials, Sandra Hong

MA Theses

The history of art has shown that artists of the present will always find a way to push boundaries and create unprecedented work, whether through the use of foreign materials, new technical processes, or in concept. However exciting this may be, this innovation in the twenty-first century has brought with it an entire world of new challenges for today’s conservators—the specialists tasked with the seemingly impossible duty of preserving art that, by its very nature, refuses to endure. This thesis is an examination of the unique conservation challenges in contemporary art that have been introduced as a result of an …

The Glass Ceiling: Female Artists' Gallery Representation In The New Millennium And A History Of Imbalance, Caroline Currier

MA Theses

The concept of the “glass ceiling” means that an acknowledged barrier to advancement in a profession exists. This paper discusses the state of gender inequality in contemporary New York galleries today, and how they have changed over the past 10 years as well as contextually, throughout history. Often, gender inequality in the art world is made visible by the lacking number of female artist museum shows or through comparing auction prices. Statistics regarding gallery representation is less common, in part due to the fact that artist representation is a fluid process and it is difficult to track these figures over …

Strange Rarities, Cori Crumrine

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

‘Strange Rarities’ is a compelling and odd coupling of words, and similar to this body of work, this phrase both masks and reveals its references. ‘Strange’ defines something unfamiliar or extraordinary; ‘Rarity’ describes something that is uncommon, or the quality of being rare. Paired together, a ‘strange rarity’ refers to an object, a feeling, or a something, which discourages familiarity and excites wonder and awe.

What The Walls Say: Finding Meaning And Value In Tel Aviv’S Street Art, Rachel R. Bird

Honors Theses

This thesis explores street art in Tel Aviv, Israel through anthropological concepts of value. By defining street art as an interstitial practice—one that exists between permeable, socially defined boundaries and is characterized differently by different power structures—I attempt to define some of the different regimes of value that apply to street art. Using the emerging market of “street art tours” as a fieldwork site, I look at how street art is presented and re-presented to both tourists and locals. By situating my research in a historical and geographic context, I hope to understand the ways different value schema, from economic …

Through My Window, Haiyin Liang

Theses and Dissertations

I convey my thoughts through art jewelry; making jewelry is my language of communication and commemoration. Inspired by historical Chinese art and contemporary jewelry, my practice pays attention to bring classical Chinese aesthetics of hazy poetic and ideal arrangement into the contemporary jewelry field. The attention to detail refers to the quiet contemplation and emotional experiences encouraged by each of my works. Through my research, I use metalsmithing language to communicate with non-precious materials finding my own way of expression and meditation. Meanwhile, I build environments that display jewelry off the body in order to construct a picturesque landscape. The …

Didier William, Nestor Armando Gil/Taller Workshop: Swarm, Pennsylvania Academy Of The Fine Arts, Laurel Mclaughlin, Mechella Yezernitskaya

Books, pamphlets, catalogues, and scrapbooks

Catalogue to the exhibition Swarm at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, June 30, 2018-September 9, 2018, curated by Laurel McLaughlin and Mechella Yezernitskaya (graduate students, History of Art, Bryn Mawr College).

The work of artists Didier William (b. 1983) and Nestor Armando Gil (b. 1971) beckons viewers, as an imperative, to physically and intellectually “swarm” conceptions of colonialism in order to disarm such narratives of power. The artists’ mixed media practices in printmaking, painting, collage, sculpture, installation, and performance are inflected by their Haitian and Cuban heritages as well as the diasporic communities they call home in …