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Art and Design Commons

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Theory and Criticism

Sotheby's Institute of Art

Theses/Dissertations

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Full-Text Articles in Art and Design

Contemporary Textiles: Unraveling White Feminist Discourse, Meredith Friedman Jan 2021

Contemporary Textiles: Unraveling White Feminist Discourse, Meredith Friedman

MA Theses

In recent decades, attention to textile art has flourished. The growth of contemporary studies committed to revising fiber’s hierarchical categorization represents a discursive turn heavily weighted within feminist inquiry. The interrelation between textile techniques and constructs of femininity and domesticity was at the base of a robust interdisciplinary field of feminist theory developing around the 1970s in the US. Often referred to as the second wave of feminism, this era experienced scholars and artists proposing the medium’s capacity to counter the elusive genre’s marginalization and, by extension, presenting textile’s ability to subvert notions of gender difference. This analysis aims to …


Contemporary Methods Of Preserving Land Art: A Case Study Of Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, Samara Johnson Jan 2019

Contemporary Methods Of Preserving Land Art: A Case Study Of Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, Samara Johnson

MA Theses

The preservation and conservation of Land art has become an increasingly complex and urgent issue as important Earthworks created in the late 1960s and early 1970s continue to age. They present a variety of challenges—both physical and philosophical—to those tasked with maintaining them. Using Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) as a case study, I have outlined four key guidelines for maintaining and preserving works of Land art. In order to survive, the artist’s intention intact, these works require collective stewardship, an interdisciplinary approach, the promotion of responsible visitorship, and an extension of the museum model. Today, social media has presented …