History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

Globalism And Identity In Taiwanese Contemporary Art, 1978–2009, Chu-Chiun Wei

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Taiwanese contemporary art emerged in the 1980s and rapidly flourished in the 1990s, nourished by the process of democratization and the construction of Taiwanese consciousness prompted by the lifting of martial law in 1987. This dissertation makes two claims. Firstly, that Taiwanese contemporary art after 2000 can be understood as “post-national,” due to the country’s marginal position in the world and contentious status as a nation-state. Secondly, that Taiwanese post-national art differentiates itself from postcolonial/post-martial law art of the late 1980s and 1990s on the basis of its globalism. The three artists surveyed by the dissertation each exemplify different …

Primitivism, Performance Studies, And Modernist Time: Tracing An Alternative Genealogy Of Performance Studies Through Case Studies In Modernist Cultural Appropriation, Stephanie Vella

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces a genealogy of research methodologies for documenting, transmitting, and analyzing embodied, non-textual performance practices from the late-nineteenth through early-twentieth centuries. I uncover intersections between these methods and the conflations of race and temporality that are ubiquitously threaded through modernist cultural practices during this time in the form of primitivism. The researchers whose work I analyze all saw European modernity as fundamentally detached from physical culture, while viewing other cultures—especially those of the people most directly threatened by colonial and capitalist expansion during this time—as having access to a “lost” corporeal knowledge. I argue that primitivism is not …

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.

An Early And Feminist History Of The Paula Cooper Gallery, Kristen Clevenson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a microhistory of Paula Cooper’s early efforts in creating a more cooperative gallery model with emerging artists and seeding the growth of SoHo, New York. It also argues for Cooper’s unheralded role in sustaining women artists through marketing, economic support, visibility, and wider institutional opportunities.

Pioneers Of Evacuation, Pioneers Of Resettlement: The Photographic Archive Of The Japanese American Incarceration And The Settler Colonial Imaginary, Christina Hobbs

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reexamines the photographic archive of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II produced by the US government, arguing that these images “restage” the evacuation, incarceration, and resettlement periods through a settler colonial “pioneer” mythology, thereby obscuring the precarity of Japanese Americans' racial positionality between “settler” and “native.”

"You Can't Be Shakespeare And You Can't Be Joyce": Lou Reed, Modernism, And Mass Production, Daniel C. Jacobson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation proposes a reevaluation of the overlooked connections between American popular music and modernist literature’s scope and formal experimentation which arose in the mid-20th century. Because Lou Reed’s ever-changing persona situates his work uncomfortably between high art and pop-culture, modernism and “post-modernity,” literature and music, and ethics and aesthetics, I intend to consider Reed as this dissertation’s empty, refracted center. One that will allow for a critique of several major intellectual movements, both inside and outside the academy, that continue to influence thinking about art, ethics, and material culture. Additionally, I hope to show that the work of a …

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 …

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 …

After The Renaissance: Art And Harlem In The 1960s, Maya Harakawa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

For almost a century, Harlem has carried a symbolic weight that transcends the physical confines of upper Manhattan. In 1925, the philosopher and critic Alain Locke dubbed Harlem a “mecca,” a spiritual home that attracted people of African descent from around the world. Locke dubbed the cultural movement he chronicled in Harlem a “renaissance”—a term that describes both the “rebirth” of Black people as modern subjects and the resulting artistic effluence. In so doing, he cemented the neighborhood’s indelible connection to racial progress and artistic experimentation. Even as Harlem’s reputation has oscillated between the twined discourses of “mecca” and “ghetto,” …

North Of The Grid: The Black Experience Of 17th -19th Century Rural New York City, Stephanie E. Barnes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the United States, transatlantic slavery was a racial project and template for race-making which created a country that relied on institutions that were organized and performed through social stratification. Today, the nation still operates on systemically racist institutions that have benefited whites while disadvantaging ‘others.’ The narratives presented in American history are rooted in whiteness and benefit the white community while marginalizing nonwhites. Over two hundred years of slavery history in this country has been purposely manipulated and left out. My research focuses on using an historical archaeological framework to research and share the lives of free and enslaved …

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 …

A Parar Para Avanzar: To Stop/To Stand/To Strike To Advance, Christina N. Barrera

Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents the first fragments of a political framework outlining how I situate my work, which lives between “craft” and “art” models of making and between colonized and colonizing traditions. My writing proposes ways of making and being informed by practices, strategies, and organizing that work towards greater autonomy and liberation under these conditions.

The Screen To Desire, Joseph Parra

Theses and Dissertations

Joseph Parra reflects on our often embellished online personas and their effect on our desires. Through luscious 3-dimensional painting Parra translates the seductive desire of the hypermasculine male-presenting figure through glorification and criticality. The tactile painting also acts as a rebellion to accurately represent “real” life on the digital screen.

Dust, Mist, Haze, Michael C. Tracy

Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores painting through the ideas of dust, mist, and haze as specific atmospheric metaphors that could be used to describe ontologies of space, time, memory, and history.

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.

The Construction And Defense Of Artistic Authorship In Contemporary Copyright Disputes, Sophie Bell

Theses and Dissertations

Through the lens of three contemporary copyright infringement cases, this thesis examines topics in the field of art law, each grounded in the recent history of art and its controversies, in order to illuminate the unique set of legal conditions shaping contemporary artmaking, sale, and exhibition in the United States.

Rethinking Watteau In The Context Of Early Eighteenth-Century Bourgeois Culture, Bronwyn C. Roe

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reexamines the work of Antoine Watteau through a social-art historical lens. Traditionally, Watteau's fêtes galantes have been closely aligned to the culture of the French nobility. However, a closer look into the artist's background, training, social milieu, and the class identity of his primary buyers reveals an alternative class alignment, inviting new interpretations for Watteau's most elusive work. This thesis challenges the close association between Watteau and the French nobility and aims to broaden the socio-visual landscape from which Watteau was drawing, namely that of a burgeoning bourgeois consumer culture. In particular, the culture of emulation, with its …

Artists And The Push For Black People's Access To Healthcare, Kaitlin Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Using the works of Latoya Ruby Frazier, Simone Leigh, and Renée Stout, I explore the ways in which healthcare has been made inaccessible for Black Americans. Each chapter explores the impact of inaccessible healthcare and stereotypes, and the choice to opt for traditional alternatives to Western medicine.

Black And Silver Screens: Afropessimism And Filmic Appropriation In Contemporary Video Art, Madeleine A. Seidel

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis looks at the video works of artists Ulysses Jenkins, Ina Archer, and Garrett Bradley and their appropriation of images of Black actors in Classic Hollywood films through the theoretical framework of afropessimism.

The Sole Result Is The Game, Julia Taszycka

Theses and Dissertations

I address the idea of the game understood both from the perspective of the art world and the socio-economic system. My recent projects have been based almost entirely on found objects, bearing strong traces of damage, deterioration, and destruction.

Building For A New National Body: The Architecture Of Manuel Amábilis And Neomaya Modernity, Emily A. Cocco

Theses and Dissertations

In the history of architecture following the Mexican revolution, Yucatecan architect Manuel Amábilis (1889-1966) has often been passed over in favor of discussions of architects working in the nation’s cultural and political center, Mexico City, many of whom engaged in neocolonial and functionalist modern style to envision a modern Mexico transformed by the revolution. This omission is short-sighted, since Amábilis’s Maya revivalist architecture provides an iteration of postrevolutionary Mexican architecture that visually and ideologically manifests the socialist and proindingenous aims of the revolution while imagining a paradigm of modern nationalism that was not rooted in Western ideals. Amábilis’ neomaya architecture, …

“Paint What You Hate”: Philip Guston’S Hooded Figures And The Postponement Of The Exhibition Philip Guston Now, Thomas Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis interrogates the postponement of the Philip Guston Now exhibition, examining the justification for the postponement, the actions taken by the National Gallery of Art, and the effects of the postponement. My research examines the museum’s choice to cite social justice as the main context for understanding Philip Guston.

Sondra Perry: On The Limits And Possibilities Of Access, Visibility, And Freedom, Sigourney Schultz

Theses and Dissertations

Sondra Perry: On the Limits and Possibilities of Access, Visibility, and Freedom connects the intellectual history of cyberfeminism and Afrofuturism with the future of post-Black studies by exploring themes such as the abstraction of blackness and the materiality of new media.

In The Face Of Death The Photographic Reevaluation Of The Death Mask During The Weimar Republic, Maresa Carney

Theses and Dissertations

During the Weimar Republic three books that shared the morbid subject of death masks, were published in short intervals and immediately enjoyed enormous popularity. The three publications Das Ewige Antlitz , Totenmasken, and Das Letzte Gesicht serve as an underpinning of the cultural and philosophical investigation of death mask photography

Ungrading In Art History: Grade Inflation, Student Engagement, And Social Equity, Lauren Disalvo, Nancy Ross

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

Traditional academic pedagogies require that professors assign students grades in a system that creates hierarchies of power of professor over student. This system assumes that grades serve as an intrinsic motivator for students to improve in an academic setting. Many studies suggest that professor-assigned grades do not function as assumed. This article explores one alternative to the traditional system, known as ungrading, a practice whereby students assign themselves grades after a semester of frequent feedback and reflective assignments. This study offers a thematic literature review of ungrading in many disciplines and a small study of ungrading in upper-division art history …

Visual Diaries: Towards Art History As Storytelling, Alpesh Kantilal Patel

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

This essay examines variants of what I refer to as “visual diaries” – or thinking through images and written or oral language – as important “worldmaking” exercises, essential for students of color, women, sexual minorities, or other marginalized subjects. I provide my reflections on assigning this dynamic and student-centered, practice-based assignment in my contemporary art courses at a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) of higher education and a summer art residency program unaffiliated with a university. Besides my reflections on my pedagogy, I also share student feedback from unsolicited testimonials and answers to questionnaires. I argue that visual diaries transform students into …

Art History, Open Educational Resources (Oers), And Social Justice-Oriented Pedagogy: Adaptations To Introductory World Art History Survey Courses, Sara Ishii

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

This essay considers the social justice benefits of adopting OERs in an introductory art history survey course. Following the events of the COVID-19 pandemic, instructors have needed to reevaluate pedagogical approaches and teaching materials. Coupled with this present need to foster accessible and flexible courses, for decades art historians have observed the overrepresentation of white Western art and subsequent marginalization of global art in survey textbooks. Centering the need for a social justice-oriented pedagogy that recognizes global contributions to art history, I first reflect on the potential to adapt open educational resources (OERs) to disrupt status quo narratives that privilege …

Cultural Predicaments: Neorealism In The Netherlands, 1927–1945, Stephanie Huber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation takes as its subject Dutch Magic Realism, also known as “Neorealism,” an unsettling style of figurative painting developed by Dutch painters Pyke Koch, Carel Willink, Charley Toorop, Raoul Hynckes, Dick Ket, and Wim Schuhmacher during a moment of rising totalitarian regimes in neighboring countries and the Nazi Occupation of The Netherlands. Like their European counterparts, these Dutch Magic Realists conveyed the experience of modern alienation by perversely appropriating stylistic characteristics and iconographic motifs of revered national schools of painting – in their case, Early Netherlandish and Northern Renaissance traditions.

The fortunes of Neorealism exemplify the pressures brought to …

Contextualizing Britain’S Holocaust Memorial And Museums: Form, Content, And Politics, Rebecca D. Pollack

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The quantity of Holocaust memorials in Britain and their prominence in public debates beseeches the question: Why does a country with a modest Jewish population, that was neither occupied by the Nazis nor lost its citizens in the horrors of the Holocaust, devote large quantities of resources and time to memorializing the events of the Holocaust? While there are private and synagogue-based Holocaust memorials in Britain, this dissertation centers on Britain’s statefunded Holocaust memorials and museums, a substantial network of memorials that is often left out of the abundant literature on Holocaust memory. Each memorial project is examined through the …

Hellenikotita — Greekness: Constructing Greek Genre Painting, Visualizing National Identity, 1850–1900, Olga Zaferatos Karras

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1828, following a seven–year war waged against the Ottoman Empire and its nearly 400 years of subjugation, the newly–formed nation–state of Greece, “Hellas”, faced the daunting challenge of uniting a population that was as diverse as its multiple dialects. By mid–century, genre painting began to take shape. Eventually it was known in Greek as “ηθογραφία (“ethographia”) or “ethography,” from the word ήθος (ethos) or morals, referring to the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. Inspired by a literary vogue of the same name that predated genre painting, the anecdotal vignettes of …