Theory and Criticism Commons^™

Southern And Caribbean Transnational Black Feminist Dialogues In Contemporary Art, Adria Gunter

Theses and Dissertations

“Southern and Caribbean Black Feminist Transnational Dialogues in Contemporary Art” presents a Black feminist reading of the transnational cultural forms, as well as the political and social histories between the Southern United States and the Caribbean through the works of Andrea Chung, Allison Janae Hamilton, and Tamika Galanis.

Cinema's Poetic Function: Creating An Amorous Distance, William Yonts

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

The aim of this thesis is to examine how cinema can embrace its poetic function to avoid its assimilation into preexisting hermeneutic structures, which would leave it vulnerable to myth as defined by Roland Barthes, and instead be a generative force, encouraging its viewer to engage with the full potential of the text. This mode of spectatorship is termed the “amorous distance,” which Barthes describes as his simultaneous fascination with the film and that which exceeds it. The amorous distance finds further articulation through the work of Roman Jakobson and Julia Kristeva. Jakobson’s schema of six language functions describes the …

That Way: An Examination Of Male Relationships In Film During The Hays Code, Jane Knudsen

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The Hays Code (1934-1968) influenced the construct of United States masculinity and the discourse surrounding masculine presentation between the 1920s to the 1960s. The Hays Code and World War II affected the culture surrounding male/male relationships in the United States. Previous research done by David Lugowski (1999) and Jeffrey Suzik (1999) shows that both World Wars led to crises of masculinity in which the hegemonic ideal of masculinity was restructured to establish men as providers and warriors, and Code-era films reflected the discourse. To understand the gender roles in the 20^th century, I analyzed the Hays code, male bonds, …

Origin Stories., Danielle Deeley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an investigation into the Peruvian pre-Columbian collection at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. The Speed Art Museum acquired this collection in 1934 and it has largely remained unresearched for nearly a century after acquisition into the museum’s collection. This investigation is not an attempt to make broad characterizations of pre-Columbian ceramics. Nor is its goal to fill in all the gaps of the collection’s history. Instead, this thesis follows the evidence the collection presents: the physical attributes of the ceramics, the donor’s history, U.S. history, and information from the collection file provided by the Speed …

The Impersonation Artist: A Novel With Critical Afterword: Displacement And Dissent In Fiction And Art., Flora K. Schildknecht

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of a creative project, The Impersonation Artist: A Novel, and a critical afterword, “Displacement and Dissent in Fiction and Art.” On a narrative level, The Impersonation Artist engages the question of how, and if, participatory art can reveal and intervene in oppressive conditions. The novel employs a stylistic methodology in which the use of multiple narrators and narrative fragmentation formally gestures toward the complex dilemma of how artists might intervene in contemporary problems in the face of conflicting ideologies and ever increasing precarity. The novel follows three characters: an environmental activist; a young man veering towards …

Passage Of Time- The Evolution Of Art And Technology Through The Ages, Mina Ferrante

Master of Liberal Studies Projects

Passage of Time

The Evolution of Art and Technology Through the Ages

Abstract

"Passage of Time" explores the intersection of art and technological evolution through a series of portraits that transition from youth to old age, arranged sequentially from left to right. As each head turns, the face ages accordingly. These portraits illustrate the evolution of art styles throughout history, each representing a significant art movement and cultural context, pairing visual art with concurrent technological milestones.

The portrait series is presented on a background panel with a drawing depicting the evolution of technology from ancient times to the present, which …

Photography, Architecture, And Environment: An Architectural Analysis Of Edward Ruscha’S 26 Gasoline Stations, Rebecca Tonguis

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

This presentation explores Edward Ruscha’s photobook 26 Gasoline Stations through an architectural lens. Specifically, it treats Ruscha’s work as historic evidence of how consumption, industry, and commodity have infiltrated all kinds of environmental contexts through architectural manifestations. Known for being the first artist’s book, 26 Gasoline Stations ambiguously exists as both fine art and documentation of everyday conditions, with the overall graphic character highlighting its perceived focus on overarching narrative. Since gasoline stations are the primary subject of each of the 26 photographs, the subject of this work is arguably architecture, suggesting that the historic relationship between mass gas consumption—or …

Stephen Antonakos: The Spiritual Tenets Of Neon, Seville Partida

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Working without paint or brushes, Stephen Antonakos (1926—2013) created murals of neon light. These sweeping gestures of buzzing color achieve a meditative and spiritual quality yet remain accessible in their communal and urban settings. Douglas Crimp's 1981 essay, “The End of Painting '' argues that the most promising art of the time mounts a thorough critique on the myths of humanism, and consequently the cherished tropes of expressive painting. Antonakos’s career spans this period of upheaval, fraught by fears over the looming death of modernist painting as well as critical and curatorial activity that interrogated art’s structures. Although Antonakos seems …

Tarot Fabula: Radical Digital Cards, Shuffled Narrative Structures, And Playing The Future In An Era Of Algorithms, Rachel M.L. Dixon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since their earliest recorded use in the 1400s, tarot cards figure as objects for game play, artistic creativity, spiritual divination, and self-discovery. Tarot Fabula (https://tarot-fabula.com) introduces a ludic, interactive website interface that challenges 20th century tarot reading practices as linear narratives. Statistically random reshufflings of tarot decks from archival collections prompt the reader to become a narrative co-creator, drawing them into conversation with traditional reading and interpretive practices as they remix narrative elements portrayed on the cards. Tarot Fabula’s shuffling and reshuffling of cards as historical objects merges contemporary computational methods for generating random results with an interrogation of …

Ripe Spoils, Yan Cynthia Chen

Theses and Dissertations

Chen’s practice primarily focus on sculptures and installation. She explores the interplay between the idea of nature and the constructed environment, by examining how language informs what we know. The central thesis, "Ripe Spoils", employs citrus fruits as symbols for bodily experiences and personal identity, investigating their cultural and historical significance. Her sculptures summon the qualities and embedded meanings in materials like paper pulp and clay, wax and citrus fruits, often resulting in abstracted forms evocative of the human body. This thesis paper and exhibition reflect on themes like mortality and the essence of self.

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Lutz Bacher: 1975-2019, Jeremy Gloster

Theses and Dissertations

"Lutz Bacher: 1975-2019" is a monographic study of the artist Lutz Bacher (1943-2019), detailing the artist's trajectory from participant in the Bay Area photography scene of the mid-1970s to an established figure in the art world. Alongside this exposition, the thesis contends theoretically with Bacher's work, turning toward the theorist Peter Osborne's recent writings to examine Bacher's multifarious engagements with the photographic image and her own stagings of contemporaneity.

Art As Ammunition: The Creative Response To Violence In Ireland, Emma Muchow

Soaring: A Journal of Undergraduate Research

This essay examines the role of murals in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a period of sectarian violence from 1968 to 1998. It argues that these murals functioned as powerful instruments for both sides of the conflict, serving as a platform to express political ideologies, cultural identities, and lived experiences. The analysis draws upon scholarly works on art and conflict, historical accounts of the Troubles, and examinations of specific murals.

The paper explores the multifaceted role these murals played. It highlights how they served as reflections of the social, political, and cultural tensions of the time. Furthermore, it examines how …

Woven Symphony: Exploring The Parallels Between Weaving And Music, Qianwen Yu

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Weaving and music are art forms often perceived as unrelated but actually share deep connections and fascinating similarities. In this presentation, I will first briefly introduce the impact of the 19th-century Jacquard loom on the invention of the Player Piano, a musical technology that evolved into the modern "MIDI" computer audio notation system. Second, I will explore the similarities found in both weaving and musical composition by presenting some of my own media installation art works. These works translate musical scores into woven textures, and vice versa, creating symphonies and revealing new sensory ways to appreciate textiles and music. I …

Digital Reproduction: The Degradation Of Art Viewership, Zoe Wallis Weingarten

MA Theses

This thesis explores the impact of the ease of photographic reproduction on the
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“How Did Guernica Become The Important Painting And The Universal Symbol It Is Today?", Or Lebel

MA Theses

This thesis explores the intriguing journey that propelled "Guernica" from the initial obscurity of a commissioned artwork to its current status as a globally recognized symbol. The research unravels the multifaceted processes that have contributed to the transformation of a relatively overlooked artwork into an important painting and a universal emblem of protest, antiwar, and hope. The research addresses the fundamental question of how "Guernica" evolved into an important and universally recognized painting. Answering this question allows me to explore and explain how "Guernica," despite its lack of immediate recognition, grew to possess an enduring significance. The research also tackles …

Warhol Uncovered: From Byzantium To Pop, Kassandra Ibrahim

MA Theses

Despite being one of the most extensively researched artists of the twentieth century, Andy Warhol’s identity as a Carpatho-Rusyn Byzantine Catholic is often omitted by a majority of sources. Inspired by the 2020-2021 exhibition Andy Warhol: Revelation, this thesis examines the aesthetic influence that the artist’s religious upbringing had on his oeuvre. By examining Eastern Christian icons and church interiors, I define key characteristics of the Byzantine aesthetic — gold grounds, stylized frontal figures, flattening of depth, seriality, excessive decoration, etc. — and identify its usage in Warhol’s Pop Art. I also explore the Carpatho-Ruysn folk art tradition of pysanky …

Paths To The Abstraction: Kandinsky And Rothko, Vera Schueler

MA Theses

This thesis explores the artistic journeys of Kandinsky and Rothko, focusing on underlying motivations that led them towards the realm of abstraction. Kandinsky and Rothko played pivotal roles in the development and advancement of abstraction in the art world. They shared the belief that only non-figurative art had the power to convey deep meaning and evoke profound emotions, going beyond mere representation of the physical world. Despite their divergent artistic paths, artists were united by the idea of the transformative power of artistic expression and aimed to transcend to the viewer the energy and concepts of their vision through delving …

The Regenarrative: How To Change The Story In Order To Change The Future, S. Rose Bigheart O'Leary

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Abstract

In the era of Climate Change, many are concerned that the end of the Anthropocene, or the end of the era of human life on Earth, is upon us. Western European colonialism and its subsequent systems (settler-colonialism, colonial-capitalism, and globalization - sometimes termed “neocolonialism”) have all been implicated in contributing to unsustainable behaviors linked to accelerating climate change. In searching for possible solutions, some have called for listening to Indigenous Peoples, citing ethics of sustainability found among many Indigenous cultures. However, the cultural products of settler-colonialism are still dominant in ways that do not allow for Indigenous worldviews to …

The Course Of Empire: An Analysis, Devyn Woodard

Emerging Writers

This essay delves into the themes of and motivations for Thomas Cole’s series of paintings, The Course of Empire. Through an analysis of the different rhetorical appeals and fallacies employed by Cole in the series of paintings, the deeper meaning behind the works comes to light. This analysis serves as a bridge between the environment the paintings were created in almost two hundred years ago, and the contemporary global landscape, which is still in need of its lessons, even so many years later.

You Got That From Where?: Unpacking Art Imperialism In Western Museums Through The Seated Scribe And The Bust Of Nefertiti, Emmy Shouse

Honors Program Theses

This thesis examines how major Western museums perpetuate colonial narratives in their displays of cultural property through analyses of the displays of two ancient Egyptian antiquities–the Seated Scribe and the Bust of Nefertiti. Despite stated goals of decolonization, institutions like the Louvre and Neues Museum prioritize object presentations glorifying Western imperial excavations and acquisitions over providing historical and cultural context about the objects' Egyptian origins. Sparked by site visits to Egyptian museums and subsequent visits to Berlin’s Neues Museum and the Louvre in Paris, this thesis contrasts disappointing imperialist displays of Egyptian antiquities in European institutions to each object’s full …