History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

Capitalism As Readymade: 5.5 Case Studies, Nathan S. Rayman

Theses and Dissertations

Rayman makes an argument to repurpose capitalist systems as readymade artworks to shift the existing flow of capital from speculator to art producer.

How Is Global Postmodernism Globalized? Lee Seung-Taek’S Conceptual Art As The Methodology Of Survival For The Unrepresentable, Mi Hyun Oh

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis takes a comprehensive look at the integrated social context of South Korean artist Lee Seung-taek’s (b.1932) biography. I look at the ways in which Lee’s life experiences and practices capture the essential and critical influence of postwar South Korea’s strong anticommunist stance and his precarious status as a North Korean refugee in South Korea on the formation and development of his conceptual sculpture and performance work.

The Case Of New Institutionalism: Maria Lind At The Kunstverein München, 2002–2004., Olga Tykhonova

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis focuses on a particular moment in the history of Kunstverein München - the directorship and curatorial practice of Maria Lind from 2002 to 2004, referred to as exemplary of the New Institutionalism. I analyze Lind’s directorship through the lens of the director-curator concept and institution as an “agonistic space.”

Deconstructing The Image Of Woman: Video Portraiture And Women’S Performance For The Camera 1972-1980, Olivia Gauthier

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines key examples of video portraiture, a subgenre of 1970s video art in the United States. Through the examples three aesthetic categories are defined: mirroring, masquerade, and disrupting the male gaze. Video portrait works are framed by goals of the Women’s Liberation Movement and Second Wave Feminism.

The Material Turn: Charles-Germain De Saint-Aubin And The Art Of Embroidery In Louis Xv’S France, Pamela J. Koons

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Charles-Germain de Saint-Aubin and his prolific treatise, L’art du Brodeur— both of which elevated the status of eighteenth-century embroidery under the reign of Louis XV, as seen in the context of embroidered court dress, concepts of etiquette and the luxury guilds.

Expanding Experimentalism: Art And Popular Music At The Kitchen In New York City, 1971-1985, Sarah A. Cooper

Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores artists' engagement with popular music at the interdisciplinary alternative space, the Kitchen, from 1971 to 1985. It seeks a critical language to challenge institutional frameworks to account for the creative output of artists' bands and the relationship between parallel and hybrid popular music and avant-garde performance practices.

Through The Eye And Into My Heart: Scenes Of Embrace In Morgan Ms M.245 And The Tactile Responses They Provoked, Zoe A. Coyle

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines representations of embrace in a Roman de la rose (Morgan Library, M.245). Emphasis is on the reader’s tactile interaction with the manuscript as an object, and the notion of romances as sites for a distinctly physical reading practice, in which miniatures would be kissed, rubbed, or pierced.

Archaeology Of Social Patterning, Chase Bray

Theses and Dissertations

The episteme that created the grid as a structure for logic has been usurped. We compose meaning from an adulterated grid, or pattern. I process meaning through the abuse of acrid patterns and the grid, the reduction of imagery to silhouettes and by referencing both cultural and classical mythology.

Nigga Is Historical: This Is Not An Invitation For White People To Say Nigga, Sandy Williams Iv

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past several years I have been on a quest to locate a world beyond the one I’ve been presented. I am interested in the history of atomic particles - like everything that radiates off of a monument (both literally and those things that are metaphorically reified) - invisible things, and the ways in which these things insect beyond our knowledge systems. This inquiry takes many forms. Mine is a conceptually based practice linked to record keeping and time, and the ways in which these concepts find plurality within our culture; or more pointedly, the importance that we attach …

William Bernard Cooke, George Cooke, And J.M.W. Turner: Business Of The Topographical Print Series, Saskia C. Turpijn

Theses and Dissertations

The organization of eighteenth and nineteenth-century British printmaking and publishing was based on economic principles and occurred in the collaborative sphere of the engraver’s studio. Print designers, engravers, printers, and publishers formed a professional network that operated on economic principles, publishing prints that served to generate income for its participants. These ventures faced great challenges in the lengthy and laborious processes of engraving and publishing, and in financing the project for the duration of that time.

This project examines the economic structure of early nineteenth-century prints. Using comprehensive accounting records, it analyzes two well-known topographical print series. The profitable Southern …

Toward Liveness: The Polytemporality Of Performance Objects, Tracy Stonestreet

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine the temporal and material connections between component parts of hybrid artworks, specifically between live events / acts of performance and the long-lasting sculptural elements that those events / performances produce. I propose a re-orientation of the temporal gaze of performance art history, from one oriented to the past to one focused on the continually unfolding present. Such a re-orientation requires a nonlinear approach to art making that complicates set boundaries of past and present, liveness and record, and presence and absence, and disrupts in potentially corrective ways our historically normative systems of looking, categorizing, and …

Lifetime, Emily E. Kuchenbecker

Theses and Dissertations

Time is my bully. Time marks the start of something, as well as the end. We are all carrying out the inexorable passing of time as it relates to our impending mortalities.

I do not fear death.

The awareness of my body’s impermanence employs me to feel that much more connected to the vessel containing that of which I am.

But what am I? Am I my body- or is it much deeper?

Through the work executed during my graduate research, I have attempted to quantify my existence through the archiving my time and body. This document ushers you through …

The Wild Beasts, Peter Cochrane

Theses and Dissertations

The Wild Beasts springs from my desire to thank my ever-expanding queer chosen family and mentors for their strength. Working through the often violent and othering aspects of the lens and photographic histories I create floral portraits responding to each person’s being and our relationship. Using the 19th century, 8x10 large format view camera—the same used by colonialists and ethnographers to “capture” the divinity of Nature—I erect each as a traditional still life studio setup at the threshold between the natural world and that constructed by humans. These environments speak both to the character of each friend and also to …

Construction Of Reality: Symbolic And Social Practice Of Michael Kurzwelly’S Słubfurt And Nowa Amerika, Olga Kostyrko

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is concerned with the analysis of two long-term community-based socially engaged art projects of German artist Michal Kurzwelly: “Słubfurt” (1999-2018) and “Nowa Amerika” (2010-2018). The research methodology for the analysis is drawn from the fields of art theory and criticism, and sociology. More specifically, in order to evaluate the social impact of long-term social art practices on the local community I borrow the criteria from the sociological discourse of bottom-up community development, while simultaneously, combining it with the insights from art criticism to discuss aesthetic dimensions of the work. I am arguing that Michael Kurzwelly’s projects are good …

Women Of The Future: The Performative Personhood Of Elizabeth Robins, Djuna Barnes, And The Baroness Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven, Michelle Feda

Theses and Dissertations

The New Woman is the term used to describe the changing social norms around women's involvement in public life during the fin-de-siècle. New Women were bold and brash, educated and independent, and, importantly young; the term encapsulated any particular woman who stepped outside of her mother's Victorian social norms. The New Woman was as much a construct of the time as it was a description. The playwright and suffragette Elizabeth Robins performs "new womanhood" on the stage, and her play Votes for Women! enacts this struggle between New Women and the older generation. Djuna Barnes started her career as a …

Layered Histories, Interpretive Desires, Rachelle Dang

Theses and Dissertations

I aim to excavate source material from the past and reinterpret its significance in the present through art. I merge history with the contemporary through acts of appropriation and material exploration, creating conditions for the viewer to grapple with colonial legacies in an affective space of visual experience.

“After-Ozymandias”: The Colonization Of Symbols And The American Monument, H. R. Membreno-Canales

Theses and Dissertations

After-Ozymandias examines the visual rhetoric of American patriotism through its many symbols, including flags and monuments. My thesis project consists of photographs of empty plinths, objects, products and archival materials. Countless relics remain today memorializing leaders and empires that inevitably declined, from antiquity to modern times. Looking back at distant history feels like a luxury, though: the question for our time in America is whether we have the strength of mind as a society to scrutinize our history, warts and all.

Bladelet Polish: A Lithic Analysis Of Spracklen ( 33 Gr 1585 ), An Upland Hopewell Campsite, Tyler R. E. Heneghan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis builds upon recent investigations at Spracklen (33GR1585), a small upland site in Greene County, Ohio. The presence of non-local cherts, bladelets, and bladelet cores indicates a Middle Woodland Ohio Hopewell occupation. Raw material sourcing, debitage analyses, and a use-wear analysis uncovered that Spracklen functioned as a logistical hunting campsite. Its people utilized bladelets for butchery and hide-working processes. This information provides new insights into Hopewellian life in the uplands and its place within Hopewell community organization.

Painting, Geography, And The Body: Charting The First Two Decades Of Mary Corse’S Art, Sarah A. Meller

Theses and Dissertations

Mary Corse has always maintained her position on the periphery, and her work has generally been excluded from art historical scholarship. This study illuminates the ways in which the first two decades of Corse’s practice were in fact in dynamic dialogue with broader impulses and concurrent trends operating at the time.

Profanation, Tsahi Zac H. Hacmon

Theses and Dissertations

This paper attempts to provoke an Israeli American dialogue that comes through profanity of conventional architecture. I am creating this dialogue by displaying two main subjects in proximity to each other: border architecture from Israel and institutional architecture or non-places in New York.

Representing Struggle: Raquel Forner’S Social And Political Engagement In The 1930s And 1940s, Diana Flatto

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Raquel Forner’s engagement with current events in her paintings from the 1930s and 1940s. Uncovering her realist style, each chapter focuses on a thematic area of her work over these years: the female figure and representation, religious iconography, and wartime.

The Romance Novel Cover, Jessica D. Spears

Theses and Dissertations

Romance novel covers dating from the 1980s and 1990s reflect complex and contradictory ideas about gender, power, and sexuality. The covers overflow with stereotypes of what women are attracted to such as enormous pink roses, lush folds of silk, and hair long enough for Rapunzel. To this socially acceptable women’s imagery, the covers add two less reputable aspects: sexual imagery and, occasionally, suggestions of female submission. Since the association of romance and conventional femininity is so strong, the covers make a visual argument that submission and sexuality are things that a conventional woman wants. Readers have to deal with what …

The Positive Developments And Applications Of Geospatial Technologies In Archaeology On Fort Benning, Georgia, Jane Mader

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the advantages of using geospatial technologies in the field of archaeology. The purpose of this study, conducted on Site 9CE16 on Fort Benning, Georgia, was to examine the ways in which Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be used to more accurately depict artifacts and features present on archaeological sites. With the research I gathered, I constructed an updated site map which can be viewed in Figures 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3. The map produced includes more features than were initially mapped at Site 9CE16 and help paint a clearer picture of the structures which existed at the original …

Pit Features: A View From Grand Island, Michigan, Emily R. Bartz

Theses and Dissertations

Serving a multitude of functions from subterrestrial cavities of storage, basins for cooking, to vessels that securely hold pounds of rice allowing the grains to be danced upon to thresh, pit features are one of North Americas most common archaeological feature. These constructions are dug to fit a diversity of needs based on the people who manufacture them. By understanding the distinct function(s) a pit or group of pit features played at a site-level, the needs of the people who inhabited that landscape are better understood. The nature of a pit feature is to store something or process a food …

Time Does Not Heal All Wounds: Temporal Differences In Spinal Pathology Among Pre-Columbian Sites In West-Central Illinois, Abigail Peeples

Theses and Dissertations

This research sought to examine a co-occurrence of three spinal pathologies, Schmorl’s nodes, osteophytosis, and osteoarthritis, within three temporally contiguous pre-Columbian sites in west-central Illinois. Albany Mounds (200 BCE – CE 400), Kuhlman Mounds (CE 600 - 900), and Dickson Mounds (CE 900 - ~1300), acted as proxies for their respective time periods in order to determine if there were any patterns among the three spinal pathologies present. Individuals with vertebrae present were examined and joints were scored based on criteria listed for each pathology. Overall, highest frequency of individuals affected by Schmorl’s nodes, osteophytosis, and osteoarthritis were located in …

Mortuary Patterns In West-Central Tennessee: Contextualizing Historic Field Data From Nine Mississippian Period Sites, Brooke Adele Wamsley

Theses and Dissertations

Middle Mississippian is a both a cultural and temporal (1200 CE – 1400 CE) archaeological context of Midwestern North America. This cultural tradition is associated with mound building, specific art motifs, arguably stratified societies, intensive agriculture, and specific ritual/mortuary practices. Burial sites can be very valuable to archaeologists because of the purposeful interaction between the living and the deceased and reconstruct cultural elements such as social identity and group membership. While American archaeology continues to be fieldwork-focused, there are a considerable amount of cultural resources housed in museum collections that could provide data for research into pre-Columbian lifeways in North …

Working Women: Agricultural Intensification, Osteoarthritis In Females, And Subadult Health In Illinois Woodland And Mississippian Mortuary Contexts, Paige M. Dobbins

Theses and Dissertations

Temporal variation was examined in female labor associated with subsistence modifications in pre-Columbian human osteological samples from the Mississippi River valley of west-central Illinois related to weaning patterns, diet, and overall health status of subadults. This study was performed on a sample of 173 burials constituting 98 subadults and 75 adult females from temporally sequential Illinois mortuary contexts (Albany [11WT1], Kuhlman [11A163], Schroeder [11HE177], and Dickson [11F10] Mounds) that represent the transition from Middle Woodland hunter gatherers to Mississippian maize agriculturalists. This was accomplished by (1) scoring pattern and degree of dental attrition and dental caries in subadults, (2) identification …

The Role Of Dogs In Prehistoric Illinois: A Study Of Dog Paleopathology At The Range Site In The American Bottom, Allison L. Huber

Theses and Dissertations

Archaeological investigations at the Range site (11S47) in the American Bottom region of Illinois resulted in the recovery of over 3,300 domestic dog (Canis familiaris) remains. Fifty-two dog burials associated with the Late Woodland Patrick phase (A.D. 650-900) and Terminal Late Woodland Period (A.D. 900-1050) were identified in the assemblage. The well-preserved nature of these remains allowed for the examination and interpretation of pathology and trauma, providing insight into the role and treatment of dogs at the site. The data obtained from the Range assemblage indicate the most common pathologies present are antemortem tooth absence, periodontal disease, cranial trauma, rib …

Jack Goldstein In Los Angeles, Kirby Michelle Woo

Theses and Dissertations

This paper reexamines Jack Goldstein as one of the key but under recognized figures of what came to be known as the postmodern period in American art. Often described as bridging the gap between conceptualism and pop art, his work explores visual strategies of representation through the lens of art and mass media and how they inform our understanding of the world around us. Goldstein's interest in representation is outlined by the cultural practices and aesthetic priorities of Los Angeles (where he began making art) of the late 1960s and 1970s and by extension, Hollywood.

Xu Zhen & Madein Company: The Phenomenon Of Artist-Company, Qianfan Gu

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis is about the phenomenon of "artist-company" -- commercial methodologies employed by contemporary artists are determining their artworks. Taking XuZhen as a case study, it attempts to understand the phenomenon through aspects including art autonomy and institutional theories. It argues that "artist-company" is a continuation of institutional critique.