Contemporary Art Commons^™

Presence-At-Hand, Eric Lyle Schultz

Graduate School of Art Theses

Abstract

The writing that follows is intended to provide a theoretical framework for the motives behind my practice. The primary concerns addressed are the reception, transmission, and physical shape of knowledge. I will discuss a human condition that exists as a byproduct of both the legacy of representation as well as the innate biology of the brain. I will argue that as a society we are governed by the residue of an extreme logic, and that this condition places severe margins on our potential for creative solutions. I will propose that our ability to create meaning is stifled by the …

Scars Of War, Corinna Martell, Camille Hanna, Brandon Bauer

Student Creative and Scholarly Works

Scars of War: The Psychological and Physical Traumas of War Depicted through Art.

War is shattering, leaving behind gaping wounds in need of healing. Some require bandages, other wounds are psychological and not visible. Both leave a scar. These scars are an inevitable part of the human experience. The psychological and physical ramifications of war exist as long as strife pervades. This collection of works, depicting war from the French Revolution to present day Iraq, illustrates the scarring impact war has on the people and places within its grasp. New technology and art styles have transformed the way we see …

Contrabienal: Latin American Art, Politics And Identity In New York, 1969-1971, Aimé Iglesias Lukin

Artl@s Bulletin

This article focuses on a community of Latin American artists living in New York and the influence of regionalism and politics in their identification as a group, taking up the case of the Contrabienal, an art book published in 1971 as a call to boycott the XI São Paulo Biennial in protest of censorship and torture in dictatorial Brazil. The book was aesthetically eclectic and included artists from different generations. Still, its organizers were all part of the strong shift towards Conceptualism then taking place. In light of the current revision of the Latin American Conceptualism canon, this article …

Speed And Resolution In The Age Of Technological Reproducibility, Shawn Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

The rate of acceleration of the biologic and synthetic world has for a while now, been in the process of exponentially speeding up, maxing out servers and landfills, merging with each other, destroying each other. The last prehistoric relics on Earth are absorbing the same oxygen, carbon dioxide and electronic waves in our biosphere as us. A degraded .jpeg enlarged to full screen on a Samsung 4K UHD HU8550 Series Smart TV - 85” Class (84.5” diag.). Within this composite ecology, the ancient limestone of the grand canyon competes with the iMax movie of itself, the production of Mac pros, …

Historicity, Achronicity, And The Materiality Of Cultures In Colonial Brazil, Amy J. Buono

Art Faculty Articles and Research

"In this essay, I use three nontraditional forms from the visual culture of colonial Brazil—Tupinambá featherwork, Portuguese Atlantic mandinga pouches, and azulejos (tilework)— in order to meditate upon materiality and temporality as methodological problems with which our discipline should engage. Each of these art forms has historical trajectories that span cultures, continents, and centuries, a circumstance that raises questions as to how such diverse and stubbornly nonhistoricizable genres can be melded into a coherent historical narrative of the visual and material cultures specific to 'Brazil,' especially when two of them — the mandinga bags and azulejos — are not intrinsically …

Scribblescholar Was Here: Confessional Notes Of A Vandal Academic, Clay Shields

Theses and Dissertations--English

As a (former) vandal-punk in the academy, I often fear succumbing to Ivory Tower Stockholm syndrome. The identities I perform, vandal-punk and scholar, ideologically clash to the point that they often feel irreconcilable. By codemeshing the high-low discourses associated with these adopted cultures, I attempt to disrupt any hierarchal privileging of either, instead searching for a way to live with and harness both.

Interpretative Ingredients: Formulating Art And Natural History In Early Modern Brazil, Amy Buono

Art Faculty Articles and Research

"In this article I look at two early modern texts that pertain to the natural history of Brazil and its usage for medicinal purposes. These texts present an informative contrast in terms of information density and organization, raising important methodological considerations about the ways that inventories and catalogues become sources for colonial scholarship in general and art history in particular."

Mona Hatoum And The Biographical Influence On Cross-Cultural Exchange, Nicole Shelton

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Artist Mona Hatoum, a Palestinian born in Beirut and educated in London, has experienced the boundaries and displacement of exile. These have become influential in her work and are implied within some of her statements. Compared are the external experiences of a double-exile directly to her subjectivity, culminating in a discussion of works of art such as Light Sentence (Fig. 3) and Homebound (Fig. 7), and highlighting the issue of cross-cultural exchange. This artist is one of many exhibiting cultural exchange within art as a manifestation of hybridization of different cultures, even if the artist does not acknowledge this multiplicity. …

To Each His Own Reality: How The Analysis Of Artistic Exchanges In Cold War Europe Challenges Categories, Mathilde Arnoux

Artl@s Bulletin

How to reconstruct artistic relationships among four European countries, situated on both sides of the Iron Curtain, during the period that commenced post-Stalin and lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall? This is one of the questions that faces the research program To Each His Own Reality: The notion of the real in the art of France, West Germany, East Germany and Poland between 1960 and 1989, which was initiated in January 2011. The paper discusses syntheses of the questions that the research team is facing, descriptions of its methodology, an analysis of preliminary results and what they allow …

Paiting, Lucas Page

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

My work is motivated by the painting “as such” – as an inquiry into and intervention upon what constitutes a painting, how they are constructed, how they function, etc. Through an investigation of painting as a genre, both in its historical canon and contemporary forms, I deconstruct the formal and cultural elements surrounding the field. Four major axes serve as the basis for my inquiry and intervention of painting: Painting, Abstraction, Representation, Control. Taking as a point of departure the comment, “Your work is a representation of abstraction,” I aim to figure out how “the painting” (in all of its …

Constructions Of Black Identity In The Work Of Glenn Ligon And Kara Walker, Shadé R. Ayorinde

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

In this thesis I reference artworks and installations by Glenn Ligon and Kara Walker, as well as contemporary mass media images, to offer a reading of various constructions of black identity in the 1990s and into the 21^st century. I specifically note the continuation of social biases against black bodies, which in large part stems from historical conditions of 19^th century America and the lingering legacy of slavery. I also address how the absence or implied absence of the black male body, as referenced in works by both Ligon and Walker, relates to contemporary social conditions in which …

Michael Craig Martin: Biographical Entry, Niamh Ann Kelly

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Alanna O'Kelly, Biographical Entry, Niamh Ann Kelly

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Jaki Irvine, Biographical Entry, Niamh Ann Kelly

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Daphne Wright, Biographical Entry, Niamh Ann Kelly

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Maurice O'Connell, Biographical Entry, Niamh Ann Kelly

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Grace Weir, Biographical Entry, Niamh Ann Kelly

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Finola Jones, Biographical Entry, Niamh Ann Kelly

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Frances Hegarty, Biographical Entry, Niamh Ann Kelly

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Fluxus, Dore Bowen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Garry Winogrand: The Art Of Street Photography, Micayla Beuley

Honors Projects

This exhibition proposal, designed for the Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery located in the Fine Arts Center at Bowling Green State University, is designed to enhance gallery patrons’ understanding of and appreciation for street photography through a biographical analysis of the works of Garry Winogrand. In addition to presenting 30 photographs by this esteemed photographer, patrons are invited to actively participate in the creation of street photographs and provides a unique opportunity to display them alongside that of a professional in a gallery setting. This exhibition proposal includes a curator’s statement, formal exhibition catalog essay, list of works proposed, detailed floor …

Science Fictional Transcendentalism In The Work Of Robert Smithson, Eric Saxon

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

In studies of American artist Robert Smithson (1938-1973), scholars often set the artist’s early abstract expressionist and Christian iconographical paintings apart from the rest of his body of work, characterizing this early phase as a youthful encounter with the enduring legacy of abstract expressionism in the late 1950s to early 1960s as well as a temporary preoccupation with ritualized Catholic imagery. This thesis argues for the inclusion of this early phase into Smithson’s career as a foundational period in which he established the set of problems that artistically engaged him throughout his life: issues of temporality, materiality, and universal entropy. …

Ritual Process, Kevin A. Baer

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

My art is a means for investigating the passage of time, the decay of physical things, and the truth of mortality. I explore these concepts through process-oriented sculptures that emphasize ritual and material. The process is communicated with the creation of relics, often existing as drawings or the remains of degenerated sculptures. These relics bear witness to the process. I focus on themes of temporal change and death because they remain central to our metaphysical and physical existence. I see a diminished reverence for the power of death in our culture, and through my work I aim to pay homage …

Many Worlds Converge Here: Vision And Identity In American Indian Photography, Alicia L. Harris

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

Photographs of Native Americans taken by Frank A. Rinehart at the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in 1898 were then and continue to be part of the construction of indigenous identities, both by Anglo-Americans and Natives. This thesis analyzes the ramifications of Rinehart’s portraits and those of his peers as well as Native American artists in the 20^th and 21^st centuries who have sought to re-appropriate these images to make them empowering icons of individual or tribal identity rather than erasure of culture.

This thesis comprises two sections. In the first section, the analysis is focused on the historical …

Lessons In Playing: A Current Work Of Art As A Biopolitical Milieu, Tim Stott

Conference Papers

This paper will examine how, when certain current works of art are presented as playgrounds, in which previously unknown persons encounter one another, their play is both complexly organised around play objects and other constraints and governed within what Foucault termed a biopolitical milieu. On the one hand, this development changes the values and qualities that might describe aesthetic play, or the play particular to the encounter with works of art. On the other hand, it tests Foucault’s analysis of how biopolitical techniques of governance “make live” and allow players “to be free to be free.”

In more detail, …

Lessons In Playing: A Current Work Of Art As A Biopolitical Milieu, Tim Stott

Conference papers

This paper will examine how, when certain current works of art are presented as playgrounds, in which previously unknown persons encounter one another, their play is both complexly organised around play objects and other constraints and governed within what Foucault termed a biopolitical milieu. On the one hand, this development changes the values and qualities that might describe aesthetic play, or the play particular to the encounter with works of art. On the other hand, it tests Foucault’s analysis of how biopolitical techniques of governance “make live” and allow players “to be free to be free.”

In more detail, …

Review Of Collecting Across Cultures: Material Exchanges In The Early Modern Atlantic World, Amy Buono

Art Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Collecting Across Cultures: Material Exchanges in the Early Modern Atlantic World, edited by Daniela Bleichmar and Peter C. Mancall.

Elke Krystufek And The Obessive Production Of Person, Melanie E. Emerson

Mid-America College Art Association Conference 2012 Digital Publications

Elke Krystufek’s artistic practice has centered almost wholly on duplicate and substitute images of herself, specifically emphasizing the female body and its position within the discourses of art history and gendered identity. While an earlier generation of feminist artists used their bodies as subject and object of their work in order to critique stereotypes and forcefully dismantle barriers that excluded women from the public sphere or labeled them objects of desire, Krystufek uses similar tactics to point to the fact there is no longer a private space. Identity is not solely the property of an individual, but rather an open …

Delegated Performance: Outsourcing Authenticity, Claire Bishop

Publications and Research

An essay is presented on delegated performance in which nonprofessionals are hired to perform at a particular time on behalf of the artist on his or her instructions. The author stated that this social turn started since 1990s in contemporary art against the tradition of 1960s and 1970s where artists like Chris Burden, Vito Acconci and Gina Pane performed themselves. The author referred to the trend of live installation started in Europe in 1990s in which guards for exhibition were hired. The Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan assembled a soccer club of foreigners to play local matches in 1991.

Declan Clarke’S Fantasies, Tim Stott

Articles

No abstract provided.