History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

Public Art’S Role In Urban Transformation In New York City: 5 Pointz And The High Line, Shelby Stanton

Pomona Senior Theses

Urban spaces are made not only of buildings and infrastructure but of the social and cultural practices that integrates into social fabric and assigns their meaning. They are a living, transforming entity where humans and the environment influence each other in lifestyle and identity. In New York City, art, both formally commissioned public works and grassroots urban interventions, have become central to the processes of urban transformation. Murals, installations, and curated parks are crucial to the urban environment and are frequently leveraged as tools of placemaking. Place-making is a concept used to describe and understand how meaningful places emerge from …

The Divine Feminine Reframed: Dogma And Doctrine, Icon And Flesh, And The Sacred Embodiment Of Reclamation, Natasha Keckley

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis interrogates Marian iconography and its role in constructing a moral binary that marks female bodies as either sanctified or sinful. Drawing on feminist and postcolonial theory, iconographic analysis, and historical case studies, the research analyzes how Christian symbology established the Marian Mold: a theological aesthetic apparatus that exalts feminine sanctity through ideals of virginity, obedience, and maternal receptivity while constraining feminine expression. This paradigm, propagated through the British Empire’s colonial regimes, shaped the regulation and reinterpretation of embodied traditions. The thesis investigates these dynamics through two case studies: the Devadasi tradition and Bharatanatyam’s reformulation in South India, and …

The Confidence-Man Goes To The Moving Panorama: Herman Melville’S Confidence Narrator And United States Imperialism, Bradley J. Lee

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis argues that Herman Melville fashioned his novel The Confidence-Man; His Masquerade (1857) after the moving panorama, a popular entertainment technology contemporary with the novel. More specifically, the thesis argues that the novel recalls Banvard’s Mississippi Panorama (1846). Using Jay Leyda’s The Melville Log and John Hanners’ record of Banvard’s performances, I establish beyond reasonable doubt the possibility that Melville saw this painting, or, at the very least, was aware of it, its content, and its social position. Tracing the novel’s engagement with this panorama reveals what seems at first to be its imperialist, Manifest Destinarian undertones. The novel’s …

Erasing The Artist, Policing The City: Michael Stewart And New York’S War On Graffiti, Vladislav Kirilov

Anthós

The 1983 death of Michael Stewart, a young Black graffiti artist, exposes the violent logic at the center of New York City’s War on Graffiti. Under Mayor Ed Koch and the rise of broken windows policing, graffiti was framed as a racialized symbol of disorder used to justify intensified control of public space. Rather than becoming political in this moment, graffiti is understood here as an already politicized form of expression shaped by racial and spatial inequality. The article examines how Stewart’s killing made police violence visible, provoking responses from artists, activists, and graffiti writers while revealing the human costs …

Science Fiction Cinema And The Technological Sublime: Spectacle And The Infinite From Early Cinema To Digital, David Jackson Dr.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines how science fiction cinema constructs and reimagines the technological sublime in the twentieth century: the experience of awe, terror, and admiration provoked by human-made power and scale. Drawing on the philosophical foundations of the sublime in Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant and extending through Leo Marx’s and David E. Nye’s theorization of the technological sublime, I propose an aesthetic mode in which representation inflected with affect translates technological spectacle into examinations of humanity’s role and agency in the face of overwhelming technologized worlds and in some cases, even the universe itself.

Through three distinct historical periods …

Gradual Disordering, Billie June Brand

Art and Art History Honors Projects

My Studio Art Honors Project engages the grid as a contradictory format: one that simultaneously represents empirical order (graphs and maps), and a domestic visual language that rejects a single point of view (weaving). Gradual Disordering exists within this tension: referencing cluttered interior space, non-linear organizations, and repetition as world-building. I layer materials–photos, archival images, and journal pages–into multiple woven, painted, and ceramic abstractions. Nest-like objects perch out of reach, viewed from below. Large-scale grids and paper weavings warp in space, looked at and looked past. With additions and deletions in each iteration, the grid continually changes.

The Peoples Of The Pomegranate: Identifying Commonalities Between Diasporic Art Market Successes To Inform Broader Business Strategy, Jacob Hopkins

MA in Art Business Dissertations

This dissertation explores the teleological ties between victim diasporas and successful art market participation through an examination of the Jewish diaspora at its dominance within the art world’s expansion in the 19th Century and the Armenian diaspora at present. It argues that diasporic conditions, particularly those shaped by historical trauma, foster heightened capacity for cultural assimilation and risk taking, identifying and committing to market gaps. The dissertation then examines how these qualities can have business applications to new and emerging galleries. It achieves this through reframing the art world as an example of diaspora or a microcosm of global culture, …

Gendered Value: The Economics Of The Modernist Nude: Comparative Study Of Market Asymmetries Between Amedeo Modigliani, Suzanne Valadon, And Paula Modersohn-Becker, Ines Natuzzi

MA in Art Business Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the complex dimensions of gendered valuation through a comparative study of Amedeo Modigliani, Suzanne Valadon, and Paula Modersohn-Becker. Leading figures in the modernist reimagining of the nude in the early twentieth century, with shared ties to the Parisian milieu, their markets have since followed markedly different trajectories. Combining market and historiographical analysis with feminist theory, this study considers the structural, ideological, and discursive mechanisms that underpin these asymmetries and continue to inform the artists’ reception and valuation today.

By interrogating the gender ideologies, institutional barriers, and critical discourses behind these market asymmetries, this study argues that the …

Size Matters: How Physical Scale Is (Or Is Not) Rewarded In A Global, Ultra-Contemporary, Online Art Market, Odd Halvdan Sakse Orstavik

MA in Art Business Dissertations

This dissertation examines how the relationship between the size and price of paintings has evolved throughout the 21st century by analysing an up-to-date dataset of 18,821 works by 103 artists offered at auction between 2000-2025 within 3 distinct segments of the market (Blue-Chip, Contemporary and Ultra-Contemporary). The main finding is that the size elasticity differs in each of these segments. It is highest for the Blue-Chip segment (0.71), lower for the Contemporary segment (0.59) and lowest for the Ultra-Contemporary segment (0.55). Contrary to many previous results, it finds no optimal size within the range of works offered at auction. As …

Changing Art Market Trends And Collector Preferences In India’S Metropolitan Hubs Amid Economic Growth, Gauri Minocha

MA in Art Business Dissertations

The dissertation aims to explore how India’s post-liberalisation economic rise has shaped the structure, buying trends, and consumer behaviour within the urban art market, with the focus being on the country’s two main hubs- Delhi and Mumbai. It investigates the role of economic liberalisation, demographic shifts, globalisation, digitisation, and regulatory frameworks in reshaping the market. A mixed-method approach, combined with site visits, studying existing research, and conducting semi-structured interviews with key market players- gallerists, collectors, advisors, and fair directors, was employed. The findings reveal that the Indian market followed a ‘boom-bust-boom’ cycle post liberalisation, with the pandemic serving as a …

Contemporary Art And Cultural Identity In Post-Soviet Kazakhstan, Dinara Saduakassova

MA in Art Business Dissertations

This dissertation explores the development of contemporary Kazakhstani art after 1991, arguing that the independent nation’s international cultural visibility is defined by artists rather than institutions. Operating without state infrastructure, Said Atabekov, the Kyzyl Tractor collective, Almagul Menlibayeva, Saule Suleimenova, and Yerbossyn Meldibekov gained international recognition via biennales, exhibitions, and transnational networks. Their practices challenge state narratives of heroic nationalism and Western expectations. Case studies, interviews, and analysis of Rukhani Zhangyru and new institutions like Tselinny, enable this dissertation to argue that Kazakhstan’s position in global art history is artist driven.

Censorship In The Indian Art Market: Legal, Institutional, And Commercial Implications, Kritika Salhotra

MA in Art Business Dissertations

This dissertation examines censorship of art in an Indian context, focusing on artistic production, exhibition practices, and the commercial viability of dissenting art. Drawing on case studies from institutional controversies, legal judgments, and interviews with practitioners, the study analyses how censorship operates not only through law but also through institutional gatekeeping and market mechanisms. The research finds that while Indian courts, particularly at the higher levels, have shown slow progress towards becoming liberal, the persistence of vague obscenity provisions and inconsistent jurisprudence sustains a climate of legal ambiguity. Extralegal pressures often shape curatorial decisions, leading art organisations to retreat or …

From Visibility To Value: How Can Digital Art Achieve Long-Term Legitimacy In The Contemporary Artworld?, Ziyuan Wang

MA in Art Business Dissertations

This dissertation explores the evolving legitimacy of digital art within the contemporary artworld, addressing the central question: How can digital art achieve long-term legitimacy in a cultural landscape increasingly shaped by decentralised networks and technological innovation? Through a qualitative methodology involving interviews with digital artist, curator, collectors, and platform leader, this study aims to discover how value, legitimacy, and aesthetic quality are constructed in digital art markets.

Within the art ecosystem, digital art often emerges from community based, peer-to-peer validation, which generates visibility and drives market activity such as high-profile sales. Yet, participants continue to place value on institutional endorsement …

Representation Of Beauty- The Evolution Of Female Imagery In Renaissance Italy And Ming Dynasty Of China, Yitong He

MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design Dissertations

This thesis examines the representation of female imagery in Renaissance Italy (c.1500–1620) and Ming China (c.1480–1644), asking why two contemporaneous cultures diverged so sharply in their visual constructions of femininity. In Italy, artists such as Titian, Moroni, and Lavinia Fontana depicted women as embodiments of dynastic virtue, sensuality, and intellectual agency. In contrast, Ming female images—ranging from ancestor portraits and court beauties to works by Tang Yin, Qiu Ying, Cui Zizhong, and Ma Shouzhen—were framed by Confucian morality and literati aesthetics, privileging symbolic virtue over individuality.

The study employs Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital, Barthes’s semiotics of myth, and Mulvey’s …

Reason And Metamorphosis: Nicolas Poussin’S Visual Reinterpretation Of Ovid’S Apollo And Daphne, Larissa De Thomaz De Bossièrre

MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design Dissertations

This dissertation examines Nicolas Poussin’s interpretation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses through two of his depictions of Apollo and Daphne (1625 and 1663). It explores how Poussin reinterprets the myth beyond its literary source, transforming it into a meditation on love, reason, and artistic invention. Combining visual analysis, textual comparison, and a contextual study, this dissertation situates Poussin within the intellectual milieu of seventeenth-century Rome and the broader humanist tradition reflected in his art. It argues that Poussin’s manipulation of the narrative time and geometry reveals a deliberate distancing from Ovid’s poem, privileging a moral reflection over narrative fidelity. Ultimately, the dissertation …

John Singer Sargent’S Ladies In White: Identity, Atmosphere, And Society, 1883-1892, Esmé Benjamin

MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design Dissertations

This dissertation will examine how the white clothing of four portraits painted by John Singer Sargent between 1883 and 1892 operates symbolically, psychologically, and technically. Often symbolizing virtue, purity, wealth, and social status in Western society, white could also symbolize more abstract qualities such as emotion, time, and dual realities. The white clothing created concurrent storylines, broaching many areas of the subject’s life. Silk, satin, organdy, organza, cotton, flat, sheer, shiny, thin, heavy, voluminous, sleek: the textures, density, and abundance of the white fabric allowed Sargent to expand the psychological narrative while creating atmosphere. The paintings Daughters of Edward Darley …

Creativity, Innovation And Patronage: A Catalog Of Rockingham Designs At The Victoria And Albert Museum, Stella Koslowski

MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design Dissertations

This dissertation catalogs a portion of the Rockingham design book recently acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum, which comprises over six hundred designs of Biscuit Painting Patterns and China Tea and Dessert Patterns. This research aims to broaden the understanding and appreciation of the pottery, as well as establish the significance of innovation and experimentation in early English porcelain designs. Each catalog entry includes high quality images of the designs as well as comparative analysis with objects made by Rockingham and other factories around the world, bringing further richness to the understanding of the designs.

The dissertation is grounded …

From Renaissance To Modernism: Design Conventions Of Italian Maiolica In The Ceramic Output Of The Bloomsbury Group, Abigail Mansfield

MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design Dissertations

This dissertation explores the Bloomsbury Group’s engagement with Italian decorative arts, with a focus on the ceramics of Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and Phyllis Keyes. Despite ongoing debate surrounding the group’s boundaries and practices, their ceramic production reveals a deliberate reinterpretation of historical motifs, particularly Italian tin-glazed earthenware, or maiolica. By drawing on the Italian belle donne tradition and Mediterranean design principles, Bloomsbury artists adapted historical forms to articulate a modernist vision of aesthetic innovation, social critique, and nonconformity. Bloomsbury ceramics are situated within a longer British fascination with Italian art, shaped by Grand Tour practices, historical …

Representation And Cross-Cultural Mediation Of Contemporary Ink Art In New York’S Primary Art Market: A Case Study Of Fqm Gallery, Mengtian Melody Yang

MA Theses

This study investigates the representation and cross-cultural mediation of contemporary Chinese ink art within New York’s primary art market. Using Fu Qiumeng Fine Art (FQM) as a core case study, the research adopts a qualitative methodological framework that integrates document analysis, visual analysis, and semi-structured field interviews to examine how the gallery operates as a cultural intermediary. It explores how FQM defines and frames “Contemporary Ink Art,” selects and presents artists, and translates the aesthetic and philosophical foundations of this tradition for Western audiences. The findings show that FQM positions ink art not merely as a medium-based practice but as …

The Cultural Adaptation Of Abstract Expressionism In The Middle East, Solmaz Shoukohi

MA Theses

Abstract Expressionism emerged in post-WWII New York as both an artistic revolution and a tool of cultural diplomacy. This thesis examines how that ostensibly “American” art movement was adapted and transformed in the Middle East from the 1950s through the  1980s. Chapter 1 outlines the rise of Abstract Expressionism amid Cold War politics, highlighting how the style was promoted globally as a symbol of freedom. It discusses the role of U.S. institutions in exporting avant-garde art – famously described by Eva Cockcroft as a “weapon of the Cold War” – through touring exhibitions and covert sponsorship. Chapter 2 then traces …