Contemporary Art Commons^™

Esthétique Environnementale : Art, Écologie Et Politique, Alexandre Melay

The Goose

Loin de « l’idée » romantique de la nature, l’artiste Olafur Eliasson produit des « environnements environnés » à grande échelle mettant en scène les éléments naturels. L’être humain et l’expérience humaine sont au centre de ses installations, invitant le visiteur à expérimenter la spatialité et la temporalité. Eliasson utilise son art pour sensibiliser l’homme avec l’environnement et interroger sa position en tant que sujet phénoménologique. À l’activisme traditionnel, Eliasson propose une autre vision en rapport avec les mutations contemporaines et les enjeux écologiques liés au réchauffement de la planète, tout en préconisant un retour à la nature comme une …

Masks: A New Face For The Theatre, Alexi Michael Siegel

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

This study seeks to reimagine and reinvigorate modern theatre’s relationship with mask work through text-based historical research and practice-based artistic research. It focuses on three ancient mask traditions: pre- and early Hellenistic Greek theatre, Japanese Noh theatre, and Nigerian Egungun masquerades. Research on these mask traditions and recent masked productions informed the development and staging of a masked performance of Charles Mee’s Life is a Dream. The production featured sections for each of the ancient masking styles and a final section that explored masks in a contemporary theatrical style. As a whole, this creative project pulls masks out of …

Community, Preservation, And Street Art: A Proposal For San Francisco’S Mission District, Marissa Nadeau

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Latinx community is an integral part of San Francisco’s rich history. From Mexican missions in the late 1700s to an influx of immigrants from various Latin countries starting in the early 1900s, the Mission District (‘the Mission’) of San Francisco has served as a hub for this mix of residents, fondly called “Raza,” emphasizing the people of a community rather than the country they have come from. Wars and issues dealt in their homelands were close to the hearts of the entirety of the Latinx population of the Mission, and their voices and opinions were heard through a type …

The Study Of Culturally Relevant Visual Imagery And Student Interest In Contemporary Secondary Art Classrooms, Carly Marie Anderson

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Contemporary art pedagogy indicates some educators are using visual cultural exemplars that contain little cultural relevance to many students in their secondary art classrooms. The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ preferences and interests concerning visual imagery as the focus of curricular content in current secondary art classrooms in Southwest Missouri. This investigation began with a review of visual imagery within traditional fine art academies and what role this imagery plays in contemporary art rooms. The research question included: Were current secondary art students more interested in contemporary, culturally relevant imagery or traditional Eurocentric Western fine art imagery? …

North American Indigenous Collection And Curation And Its Impact On Market Arts., Adelaide Mccomb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the history of two North American Indigenous groups, those belonging to the Great Plains and the Arctic, and observes how settler-colonial influence determined the collection and curation of arts and artifacts in these areas. This art includes a mention of pre-Colombian works, but focuses predominantly on works being made after “first-contact” through the contemporary ear. The paper addresses the effect imperialist history has had on the development of Indigenous art markets, and how institutions such as museums may address them through ethical practices, and efforts to decolonize museum spaces.

Liminality As Battle-Line, Hejun Xu, Jingmei Yu

Curating Contemporary Art: Documents & Writings

Sotheby’s Institute of Art is pleased to present Liminality As Battle-Line, a group exhibition curated by Hejun Xu and Jingmei Yu, two MA Art Business candidates in class of 2018. The exhibition will be on view at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York from October 31st through November 6th. The exhibition is part of a series of projects curated by students of Sotheby’s Institute of Art enrolled in Curating Contemporary Art.

Enter The Universe, Matthew Blong

Curating Contemporary Art: Documents & Writings

Sotheby’s Institute of Art is pleased to present Enter the Universe, a monographic exhibition of recent work by New York City-based visual artist and poet Maria Dimanshtein, curated by Matthew Blong, candidate, Master of Arts in Contemporary Art, class of 2019.

Cross Cultural Presentation On Latin American Artists [Modern Languages And Literatures], Ernesto Menendez-Conde

Open Educational Resources

I have used this high-stakes assignment in the last four semesters, in the ELS103 Intermediate Spanish I class. However, it was considerably revised during two Center for Teaching and Learning sponsored seminars at LaGuardia Community College: “Bringing Global Learning Competency into Your Class” and “The Pedagogy of the Digital Ability.” These seminars allowed me to have a better understanding about how to scrutinize contexts in order to bring assignments closer to the Global Learning Core Competency and the Digital Communication Ability. The “Bringing Global Learning Competency into Your Class” seminar in particular shaped my thinking about the design and content …

The South Korean “Meta-Avant-Garde,” 1961–1993: Subterfuge As Radical Agency, Sooran Choi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation examines South Korean performance and conceptual art from 1961 to 1993 during the Cold War military dictatorship, and focuses on the dynamics of socio-political tension between the military dictatorship and the opposition of political dissidents comprised mostly of artists, students, and intellectuals, who defined themselves as “avant-garde artists.” Censored and suppressed by both the authoritarian government and the complacent art establishment, these art movements were omitted from conventional South Korean art history, and oftentimes dismissed as derivatives of Western art. My dissertation offers a critical revision of these activities by framing them instead as forms of radical dissent. …

Art Of The Harlem Renaissance, Joshua I. Cohen

Open Educational Resources

The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, known during that time as the Negro Renaissance, affected a sea change in literary and artistic production. Whereas the early-20^th-century avant-gardes in Europe had looked to black culture only as “primitive” inspiration, Harlem Renaissance practitioners asserted their status as agents of modern history and creators of black modernism. This important and tumultuous transformation can be tracked in the artistic expressions of the period, and in relation to key texts that shaped the movement. Planned visits to Harlem sites and collections, as well as to timely exhibitions elsewhere in New York, …

Public Art And Alberta's Regionalism, Amanda Buessecker

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis is a case study of two contemporary, regionalist public artworks in Alberta: Untitled, by Fraser McGurk, and Alberta Bound Panorama, by Jason Carter. The province’s economic history is outlined as an important background factor to understanding contemporary public artworks. The two artists use symbols such as the train, compass, and grain elevator to connect a contemporary audience with Alberta’s past, reminding today’s residents of the province’s tradition of success. Even in locations that target “tourists,” these paintings use local symbols to emphasize a message of prosperity and unity to the local people of Alberta.

Fluxus: The Significant Role Of Female Artists, Megan Butcher

Honors College Theses

The Fluxus movement of the 1960s and early 1970s laid the groundwork for future female artists and performance art as a medium. However, throughout my research, I have found that while there is evidence that female artists played an important role in this art movement, they were often not written about or credited for their contributions. Literature on the subject is also quite limited. Many books and journals only mention the more prominent female artists of Fluxus, leaving the lesser-known female artists difficult to research. The lack of scholarly discussion has led to the inaccurate documentation of the development of …

Fallen Fruit: How Social Practice Art Adapts To Success, Caroline Marie Giepert

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis will discuss the development of socially engaged art collective Fallen Fruit (active 2004 – present) in regards to their community-oriented projects, museum exhibitions, and recent online artwork Endless Orchard (2017). Fallen Fruit presents an interesting example of a social practice art group since they straddle both an activist agenda as well as the commercial world of mainstream institutions and the Internet. This paper will analyze the rationale for Fallen Fruit’s manner of adapting to commercial success by considering their progression from localized projects in the communities of Los Angeles to curated exhibitions in well-known museums and venture into …

Art In The Age Of Financial Crisis, Conor Mcgarrigle, Marisa Lerer

Articles

This issue addresses the long financial crisis of 2008 and the nature and diversity of artistic responses to it. This financial crisis is understood as a globalized result of late capitalism that nonetheless is experienced differently at local, regional, and national levels. It is multi- faceted in nature, a phenomenon that has historical roots and precedents that inform contemporary responses. Artists are not restricted to engage with the economy through one specific vehicle of inquiry or one type of medium and message. Therefore, the central question that this issue poses is: what is the artist’s role in finance, crisis, and …

Laboratoire DéBerlinisation: Art, Finance, And The Legacies Of Colonialism In Contemporary African Art: An Interview With Mansour Ciss Kanakassy, Conor Mcgarrigle, Marisa Lerer

Articles

Mansour Ciss Kanakassy (b. 1957) is a Berlin-based Senegalese artist whose practice addresses the legacy of colonialism in contemporary Africa, in particular as it is expressed in the financial systems of the former Francophone colonies of West Africa, where the currency, the CFA franc, historically tied to the French franc, is now pegged to the euro. The acronym CFA originally stood for Colonies Françaises d’Afrique – French Colonies of Africa – and now Communauté Financière Africaine – African Financial Community. In 2001, Ciss Kanakassy created the Laboratoire Déberlinisation (Déberlinisation Laboratory), a multifaceted project that traces contemporary African issues to the …

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.

Mind In Hand, Anna Olson

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

This thesis explores the intersection of art and psychology as it manifests in my art practice, particularly in the medium of weaving. The contemporary frameworks of memory and archive provide the basis of this discussion, as well as findings from the field of Art Therapy. Difficult emotions like loss and grief often show up in my work, and I will discuss how artists like Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Sophie Calle also utilize these concepts. In weaving, I capture my internal mental states, memories, and perceptions of the future in a variety of found and gifted objects. Guided by the precedents set …

The Nature Of My Nature; A Story About Relationships, Andrew Mcilvaine

Graduate School of Art Theses

Abstract

As a second generation Hispanic, I am a painter whose work is informed by my personal experience of displacement and longing to belong. In turn, I hope, this longing inspires an important dialogue about place, memory, otherness and belonging. I work in small, intimate scale, evoking narratives of vastness yet also of solitude. The landscape and the natural environment I represent, become populated by anonymous creatures. Both animal and human, posed in semi-natural and semi-artificial settings.

I was born in Texas and grew up in Missouri. The images I produce are often tranquil and surreal yet are grounded through …

Complexities Of Chinese Contemporary Art, Hongjia Chen

Master's Projects and Capstones

Throughout the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), art has always been state-dominated and driven by governmental and political agendas. In comparison to fellow artists in the Western world, historically, Chinese artists have lacked the freedom to express their passion and creativity through artistic forms. The contemporary art movement in China, however, maneuvers around this challenge and provides a more positive direction—one in which artists have a stronger voice and economic benefits are combined with governmental support and encouragement of art activities that enhance social capital and one’s habitus. To some extent, this is changing, with the first …

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.

Strange Woods, Song Park

Graduate School of Art Theses

I am interested in searching for images of women that have not been adequately represented in visual art. As a visual artist, I am directed by my sense of sight to investigate and know something. I like to challenge myself to visualize things that do not already have a visual representation. It has been frustrating for me to create images of women, and I have experienced a deep ambivalence in response to the different images of women I have encountered. The socially and culturally constructed images of women that I have internalized and those that have developed from my own …

Misassembled Monsters, Jenn Brown

Graduate School of Art Theses

This thesis is a narrative of personal and material history. Through my work in painting, sculpture, and installation, I seek to share my story of emotional armoring in an attempt to connect to an audience. In my work, I look to my personal memories of growing up in a small, midwestern town and armoring myself with emotional barriers against its social construct of “normalcy.” Inspired by Medieval suits of armor and the characteristics of Goth culture throughout history, I employ my work to present the stage of a theatrical battleground. Creating each of my pieces is a fight for the …

Representations Of Mainstream And Marginalized Subjects In The Work Of Diane Arbus, Grace Short

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

This thesis considers the photographs of the twentieth-century photographer, Diane Arbus. In America during the 1950s and 60s, Arbus photographed both marginalized and mainstream subjects including dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, debutants, socialites, and celebrities. At one point in her career, she expressed an interest in family portraiture and, indeed, a number of her images depict families.

Scholars who have written about Arbus, such as Susan Sontag, Carol Armstrong, Anthony W. Lee, and John Pultz, have formulated theories about Arbus’s motivations, although their findings focus on individual features of her work. Sontag argued that Arbus exploited her unorthodox sitters whereas Armstrong …

Lauretta Vinciarelli In Context: Transatlantic Dialogues In Architecture, Art, Pedagogy, And Theory, 1968-2007, Rebecca Siefert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation centers on the interdisciplinary work of Italian-born artist, architect, teacher, and theorist Lauretta Vinciarelli (1943-2011), a key yet relatively unknown figure who occupies a historic place in the 1970s revival of architectural drawings, Columbia University’s housing studio, Peter Eisenman’s influential Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) in New York, and architectonic trends in contemporary painting. She was the first woman to have drawings acquired by the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, in 1974), she was among the first women to teach architecture studio courses at Columbia University (hired in 1978), …

Cellist, Catalyst, Collaborator: The Work Of Charlotte Moorman, Saisha Grayson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

When classically trained cellist Charlotte Moorman (1933-1991) moved to New York City in 1957, she swiftly positioned herself at the intersection of experimental music, performance, video, and the visual arts. She interpreted works by composers like John Cage, collaborated with artists such as Nam June Paik, and founded and organized the New York Avant Garde Festival from 1963 to 1980. This dissertation argues that Moorman’s career sheds new light on what it meant to be an artist in this post-medium-specific moment and proposes that Moorman’s deterritorialization of authorship exerts pressure on traditional art histories. The generative dynamics of her collaborations …

The Commodity Club: Commodity Fetishism In Modern Art And Tattoos, Shelby Maiden

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The current culture of commodity fetishism that surrounds both modern art and tattoos are disproportionately a part of the perpetuation of an artificial sense of society and community. It promotes the notion that by simply by inking the deeper layers of their skin or by spending millions on a painting that somehow one becomes elevated and enters an elite space, or club, of people like them.

Creating 1968: Art, Architecture, And The Afterlives Of The Mexican Student Movement, Mya B. Dosch

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The student movement of 1968 in Mexico City staked a claim to urban space. Through mass gatherings in the Zócalo, posters in the streets, and marches past prominent landmarks, student activists countered the spectacles of national unity designed in preparation for the 1968 Olympic Games. These competing claims to space came to a head on October 2, 1968, when government agents fired on activists and bystanders gathered in Tlatelolco Square, killing dozens and imprisoning thousands more. Scholars and essayists have since framed 1968 as a watershed moment in twentieth-century Mexican history and the massacre at Tlatelolco as a “wound” …

Think Natural ! Une Nécessité Qui Ne Se Cache Plus, Cedrick Nzolo Ngamobu

Artl@s Bulletin

This contribution raises questions regarding the search for mediation and transition found in pedagogy and the creative process. This can be posed as a response to an affirmation of identity, coupled with a search for philosophical autonomy. The need for mediation or transition is a necessity that we all seek in different ways and according to our respective contexts. In teaching in a school of art or fashion, it is a question with different variables that leaves the field open to all forms of questioning and brings to the fore the confrontation of modes of expression.

Au-Delà Des Rivalités Provinciales : Poétiques Visuelles Tropicalistes Et Autres Projets D’Art Étendu Depuis La Perspective Du Nord-Est Brésilien, Ayrson Heráclito

Artl@s Bulletin

This text is a compilation of writings published during the course of our research for the 3^rd Biennale of Bahia (2014), for which we worked in the curatorial team. These investigations reflect on the genealogy of Northeast Brazil’s contemporary art, seeing this region as unrestricted and non-essentialist. The production of certain artists is considered within an expanded context. To this end, we employed the idea of PEBA (Pernambuco-Bahia), while attempting to come to terms with the possibility of existence of a family, united by the desire for a poetic turn in the tropics.