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Decapitated Dancers: An Investigation Of Nineteenth-Century Social Status And Class Representations In Degas’S L’Orchestre De L’Opéra, Jon E. McGee 2023 Eastern Kentucky University

Decapitated Dancers: An Investigation Of Nineteenth-Century Social Status And Class Representations In Degas’S L’Orchestre De L’Opéra, Jon E. Mcgee

Kentucky Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Edgar Degas is famous for depictions of ballet dancers. However, his earliest rendition of the subject in L’Orchestre de l’Opéra (Figure 1) is ignored for its ballerinas, who are beheaded by the pictorial frame. Despite the prevalence of dancers in his catalogue afterwards, scholarly discussion mostly focuses on L’Orchestre’s primary subject, bassoonist Désiré Dihau, and his peers, making it an innovative portrait which conveys modern life with formalist techniques. Most prior discussion contends these dancers were not beheaded for content, but for a formalist exercise in dramatic cropping. Recent discourse relegates the ballerinas to the background as erotic objects. …


Elizabeth Rockwell Raphael And Outlines Gallery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1941-1947, Sydney Michelle Pascarella 2023 West Virginia University

Elizabeth Rockwell Raphael And Outlines Gallery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1941-1947, Sydney Michelle Pascarella

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In 1941, Elizabeth Rockwell (1920-1998) opened Outlines, a modern art gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Outlines would come to have one of the most impressive chronologies of a modern art gallery of its time, however it receives little to no attention in any type of academic history. Rockwell herself was an important figure in Pittsburgh, had the ability to understand avant-garde art, but also to solve problems within her community. Rockwell was curating shows of similar caliber of those produced by her peer, Peggy Guggenheim, however, she does not share the same level of fame. In this thesis, I will discuss …


Untamed: The Terrifying Beauty Behind The Works Of Woman Surrealists, Shely Calderon Benpalti 2023 Sotheby's Institute of Art

Untamed: The Terrifying Beauty Behind The Works Of Woman Surrealists, Shely Calderon Benpalti

MA Projects

An exhibition of work spanning the works of five late North American and Latin American born or naturalized female Surrealist artists, Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), Leonora Carrington (1917-2011), Remedios Varo (1908-1963), Leonor Fini (1907-1996) and Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012). Untamed explores themes of female existence, alchemy, astrology, dreams and symbolism through painting works on paper and photography. Between the dark years during the first world war, the second world war and postwar, Surrealism as a means of possibility to live a dream-like life were the theory behind this artist's body of work. The deception of dreams, parallel realities and profound studies into …


Revolution And Revelation: An Early Russian Avant-Garde Private Collection, Olivia A. Aurtenechea Eguiron 2023 Sotheby's Institute of Art

Revolution And Revelation: An Early Russian Avant-Garde Private Collection, Olivia A. Aurtenechea Eguiron

MA Projects

Revolution and Revelation: An Early Russian Avant-Garde Private Collection is an
exhibition proposal with accompanying essays that explore the value and influence of the Russian Avant-Garde art movement, highlighting its significance as a revolutionary force in early twentieth-century art. While the first essay provides a comprehensive overview of the Russian Avant-Garde art movement, the second one explores the considerations and advantages of exhibiting a private collection of early Russian Avant-Garde art, specifically Suprematism, in either a museum or a gallery. The first essay, A Look Into Russian Avant-Garde, delves into the value and influence of the movement acknowledging the challenge …


Monumentality Of The Artist Chapel: Dissecting Light, Color, Spirituality, And Permanence, Katherine Isler 2023 Sotheby's Institute of Art

Monumentality Of The Artist Chapel: Dissecting Light, Color, Spirituality, And Permanence, Katherine Isler

MA Theses

The concept and creation of the artist chapel is an opportunity presented to only a select few artists. Artist chapels are monumental, permanent works of art that expose a sweeping summary of the artists oeuvre and act as a window into the mind of the artist. The chapels of Ellsworth Kelly, Dan Flavin, and Mark Rothko present a variety of similarities through the mediums of light and color. These characteristics take the artist chapel from a piece of art, to a transcendent
/="/">environment that cocoons the viewer in a space of both the seen and unseen. Each of these …


Spirituality And Abstract Art, Hao Zheng 2023 Sotheby's Institute of Art

Spirituality And Abstract Art, Hao Zheng

MA Theses

Through a close analysis of abstract art and metaphysics (ontological and psychical), the paper examines how metaphysics might be related to abstract art, as well as the early emergence of abstract art in diverse cultures around the world, and its development from the 19th to the 20th century in the modern art world. The paper conducts an examination of some modern abstract art pioneers, as perceived by general public, such as Wassily Kandinsky and Agnes Pilton, who
experimented with the art form in the 19th and 20th centuries, and their intentions based on metaphysics: spirituality and mythology are included in …


Manifesting Magic: Occultism And Feminism In The Art Of Leonora Carrington And Remedios Varo, Margaret Dirschl 2023 Sotheby's Institute of Art

Manifesting Magic: Occultism And Feminism In The Art Of Leonora Carrington And Remedios Varo, Margaret Dirschl

MA Theses

The artworks of Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo are replete with
/="/">symbolism and evocations of the occult, formulating bodies of work that are charged with magic and mysticism. When studied within the context of their male contemporaries of the Surrealist group, it becomes apparent that this use of the occult operates as a compelling and historically based feminist strategy. Immediately stemming from the occult revival of the previous century and the issues for females presented by Surrealism, the foundations of this idea originate much earlier in the pagan traditions of antiquity and the witch hunts of the 15th through …


New Frontiers In Technology: Can Traditional Intellectual Property Rights Laws Be Adapted And Applied To Nfts?, Mariyah S. Wakhariya 2023 Catholic University of America (Student)

New Frontiers In Technology: Can Traditional Intellectual Property Rights Laws Be Adapted And Applied To Nfts?, Mariyah S. Wakhariya

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

A decade ago, ‘NFTs’ were rarely heard of or known to anyone, unless they worked in or kept up with the tech world. However, they are not new - they have been around for almost two decades. Their popularity has grown over the past few years. ‘NFT’ stands for ‘non-fungible token’. An NFT is a digital file with a unique identity that is verified on a blockchain and is therefore not interchangeable - i.e., a kind of crypto asset, like an authentication certificate for digital artifacts. In theory, NFTs can represent almost any real or intangible property. These days, it …


Situating The Corrido In Diego Rivera’S Murals At The Ministry Of Public Education, Calla Flood Tardino 2023 CUNY City College

Situating The Corrido In Diego Rivera’S Murals At The Ministry Of Public Education, Calla Flood Tardino

Dissertations and Theses

On the top floor of Diego Rivera’s colossal mural cycle at the Ministry of Public Education, the artist painted a matte red banner with the lyrics of revolutionary ballads, known as corridos. Although there is a great amount of scholarship surrounding Rivera and his murals at the Ministry of Public Education, there is a gap in literature about the inclusion of the corrido banner and its significance. By building on the scholarship from art historians (Mary Coffey, Dafne Cruz Porchini, Anna Indych-López), historians and ethnomusicologists (Cati de los Ríos, Maria Herrera-Sobek, Jose Limón, Américo Paredes, Michael Denning), and scholars …


The Feminization Of Mexico City In The Late Twentieth Century: Polvo De Gallina Negra, Pola Weiss, And Lourdes Grobet, Alexis N. Corral 2022 CUNY Hunter College

The Feminization Of Mexico City In The Late Twentieth Century: Polvo De Gallina Negra, Pola Weiss, And Lourdes Grobet, Alexis N. Corral

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis centers on select artworks in public intervention, photography and video as an exploration of female's relationship to Mexico City's social landscape and urban space during the late 1970s into the early 1990s. In three case studies, I explore historical urban planning, gender relations, and the effects of modernization.


Exhibiting Art In A European Periphery? International Art In Sweden During The Cold War, Katarina Wadstein MacLeod, Marta Edling, Pella Myrstener 2022 Södertörn University

Exhibiting Art In A European Periphery? International Art In Sweden During The Cold War, Katarina Wadstein Macleod, Marta Edling, Pella Myrstener

Artl@s Bulletin

The project Exhibiting Art in a European Periphery? International Art in Sweden during the Cold War aimed to investigate international exhibitions in Sweden during the postwar period from circa 1945 to the end of the 1980s. The main objective was to find information beyond preconceived ideas of what is important, interesting, or simply good art. In this article, we present our method for searching through the archives and some of the findings and insights generated.


Art Contre/Against Apartheid At Lunds Konsthall: An Entangled History Of Art And Solidarity From Paris To Pretoria, Katarina Wadstein MacLeod 2022 Södertörn University

Art Contre/Against Apartheid At Lunds Konsthall: An Entangled History Of Art And Solidarity From Paris To Pretoria, Katarina Wadstein Macleod

Artl@s Bulletin

This article concerns the international touring exhibition Art contre/against Apartheid originating in France and which reached Lunds konsthall, Sweden in 1984 and was to tour the world for ten years. The aim with this exhibition was to raise awareness of the apartheid regime, cause international protest and ultimately remove the repressive political system. Using histoire croisée as a method this article investigates the different interests and stake-holders in the exhibition at Lunds konsthall, including the critique of the exhibition as resting on white supremacy. The purpose of the article is to locate the different intersections regarding international art, international politics …


Transgressing Time: Life And Death In The Portraiture Of Paula Modersohn-Becker, Elizabeth Ezekiel 2022 Bridgewater State University

Transgressing Time: Life And Death In The Portraiture Of Paula Modersohn-Becker, Elizabeth Ezekiel

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Paula Modersohn-Becker, 1876-1907, had a short, intense life – one in which death remained close by. This closeness is due to a high number of tragedies her family incurred, as well as her (correct) belief that she would die young. This apprehension for death, among other reasons that will be explored in this thesis, led her to be inspired by the Fayum mummy portraits, an ancient funerary art form dating back to 30-40 CE in the Greco-Roman period of Egyptian history. Aside from the exhibition entitled Paula Modersohn-Becker und die ägyptischen Mumienportraitsat the Museen Böttcherstraßethere there remains no scholarship directly …


Queer Bodies: Homoeroticism, Sensuality, And Erotica In Postmodern Fine Art Photography, Rosa Michel Pace 2022 Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College

Queer Bodies: Homoeroticism, Sensuality, And Erotica In Postmodern Fine Art Photography, Rosa Michel Pace

LSU Master's Theses

The queer body– describes the sum of assumptions and biases attributed to queer people, whereby a person’s own queer identity or expression is overshadowed by the generalizations, (mis)perceptions, and stereotypes that society imposes on that individual. Central to the scope of this thesis is the reality whereby the ostracization of queer people involves the association between the very body of the queer person with sexual acts deemed both deviant and immoral by a cis-heteronormative society. Society renders the queer body as pejoratively deviant simply on the basis of its existence alone, where any form of varied gender or sexual expression …


Futurist Art And Touch: Dinamismo Plastico, Tattilismo, Polimaterismo, Molly J. Everett 2022 CUNY Hunter College

Futurist Art And Touch: Dinamismo Plastico, Tattilismo, Polimaterismo, Molly J. Everett

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis considers the Futurist engagement with touch, primarily through the artwork and writing of four Italian artists: Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916), F. T. Marinetti (1876–1944), Benedetta (Cappa) Marinetti (1897–1977), and Enrico Prampolini (1894–1956). Informed by childhood education, art theory and aesthetics, and perceptual psychology, these Futurists embraced tactility as a vehicle for avant-garde invention.


The Beehive, The Favela, The Castle, And The Ministry: Race And Modern Architecture In Rio De Janeiro, 1811–1945, Luisa Valle 2022 CUNY Graduate Center

The Beehive, The Favela, The Castle, And The Ministry: Race And Modern Architecture In Rio De Janeiro, 1811–1945, Luisa Valle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation deploys a multidisciplinary and decolonial framework to investigate the architecture of cortiços, the Favela Hill, the Castelo Hill, and the Ministry of Education and Public Health (MES) building as constitutive of the history of modernization and modernity in the Centro (city center) of Rio de Janeiro, 1811-1945. The first three chapters investigate the distinct geographies, formal and material qualities, and populations of cortiços, the Favela Hill, and the Castelo Hill, as well as their racialization and essentialization by the “unsanitary” and “degenerate” labels bestowed upon these landscapes by the state. Traditional narratives and practices of modern architecture and …


Pop/Art: The Birth Of Underground Music And The British Art School, 1960–1980, Andrew Cappetta 2022 CUNY Graduate Center

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 began …


Ambiguity Of Vision: Reimagining The Hypervisible Void, Kiwha Lee Blocman 2022 CUNY Hunter College

Ambiguity Of Vision: Reimagining The Hypervisible Void, Kiwha Lee Blocman

Theses and Dissertations

Asking questions about what Painting is in the 21st century and the dominant narratives it can challenge, my paintings complicate the viewer’s reading of pictorial hierarchy and the projection of human relations in the world. I de-hierarchize and decentralize the compositional components that make up a painting by using patterns to create spatial depth, not European perspectival conventions. In dialogue with modernists such as Matisse who drew from the visual vocabulary of “The Orient”, my central forms derived from architecture and ornamental fragments possess a body-like presence. Further, I reinvent ancient Asian printmaking processes with oil paint. Observing the tenets …


Prometheus & The Body Beautiful: Arno Breker And The Weaponization Of The Greco-Roman Tradition In The Größe Deutsche Kunstausstellung, Sophia Maldonado 2022 University of Mary Washington

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

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

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 of …


The Portrait And The Pedagogical Object: Art, Advertising, And Commerce In The Works Of Marcel Broodthaers, 1968-1971, D'Arcy Blake 2022 CUNY Hunter College

The Portrait And The Pedagogical Object: Art, Advertising, And Commerce In The Works Of Marcel Broodthaers, 1968-1971, D'Arcy Blake

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the opposition of language and object and the roles of art, poetry, advertising, and commodity in Marcel Broodthaers’s van Laack ad (1971). Through a theoretical analysis of Broodthaers’s works from 1968-1971, this study situates the enigmatic van Laack ad as one of the Belgian artist’s most significant, yet overlooked artworks.


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