Contemporary Art Commons^™

Humanizing The Tattoo: Looking Beyond The Skin's Surface, Julia Schuckman

MA Projects

Tattoos. Works of art on the skin, but what does it mean? One does not just brand themselves without a just cause. There is much that goes into a tattoo; selection of a design, collaboration with an artist, color selection, actual tattooing, and the aftermath/healing. This is the same process no matter the size of the piece. Even as a simple quote in black across a section of skin, there is more behind the ink and skin. There is an individual with a story. The exhibition, Humanizing the Tattoo: Looking Beyond the Skin’s Surface will explore the human relationship to …

Subversive Stitch, Kimberly Reinagel

MA Projects

WhiteBox Harlem is thrilled to present Subversive Stitch, a group exhibition featuring female contemporary artists that work in textiles, curated by Kimberly Reinagel. Presented at this show will be works by Eozen Agopian, Alexandria Deters, Zhen Guo, Lisa Kellner, Mariana Garibay Raeke, Kimberly Reinagel, Leila Seyedzadeh, Victoria Udondian and Christina Whitney Wong. This exhibition will look at the societal reassignment of the textile in the art market. Textiles throughout history have been primarily considered a "feminine" medium. Fabrics, fashion, embroidery and tapestry all connote a feminine background, and have thus notoriously not been received with much gravity. This exhibition is …

Land Art : True Capitalist Art, Annie Gustafsson

MA Theses

Land art is known to exist in remote locations, are immense in scale, are site specific and are incredibly costly to create. All of these traits make Land artworks inherently resistant to conservation and the secondary market.

If these artworks do not present an obvious investment opportunity, how then can an art movement like Land art even exist? What is its role in a capitalist driven society, if it cannot perform as a financial asset? Where then does the value in Land art lie?

This paper will attempt to explore the cultural effects on the movement, the subsequent methodologies developed …

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 …

What Are The Challenges Of Establishing The Fair Market Value (Fmv) Of Guggenheim Founding Collection? If The Transparency Of An Asset Value Is Possible On Non-Profit Financial Year Report, How Can The Fmv Preserve The Continuity Of Public Art Patronage, In Spite Of, Deaccession Artwork From The Guggenheim’S Collection Being Sold On The Auction Market?, Leng Ho

MA Theses

A collector’s financial interest in purchasing works of art is often motivated by potential return on investment. These collectors have heard countless stories of others gaining huge financial returns after consigning rare works of art from a museum collection. In recent decades, rising debates on the capitalizing of museum collections to gain financial assets allude to long-term negative repercussions. Those opposed postulate that art patron will lose trust in a museum’s ability to care for its publicly-owned collections. Deaccession is a difficult research topic, attempts to resolve any conflicts of interest in the matter of selling cultural work of art …

Private Art Museum Backed By Hong Kong Invetment - Wan Fung Art Musem As An Example, Yiye Chen

MA Theses

The rapid development of private art museums in the world can be regarded as the epitome of global economic development. The Chinese government has given unprecedented support to the development of culture and art. As the world's second largest economy, China's middle class has been increasing year by year. The hot art market has attracted European and American auction giants, and famous galleries have entered the Chinese market. Since the birth of the first private art museum in China at the end of the 20th century, Chinese scholars have been constantly exploring the direction of development. From copying the European …

Teamlab Research, Chinchen Liu

MA Theses

teamLab undoubtedly opened a new era of art. It allows professionals in multi-industries to use the latest science and technology to create art, they are all popular for local audiences from Japan to the United States, from Italy to China, wherever they go. As a significant representative form of the trendy show and immersive exhibition, teamLab's works are completely different from the past in terms of creative logic, exhibition experience, and collection methods. By going through the development history of teamLab, this article studies the characteristics of its exhibitions, audience, and the connection with traditional art, in order to explore …

A Study On The Commercial Promotion Mode Of Contemporary Young Artists In China Taking Art Nova 100 As An Example, Han Le

MA Theses

Nowadays, young artists have increasingly become a significant part of the art market in China since there has been a recent emergence of China's art market. Therefore, their personal growth and development would greatly impact the future of art market. With the support of relevant economic and political policies from the government, China has initiated many innovative characterized business modes of cultivating young artists. By looking at Art Nova 100, a quite typical art project of recent years in China, this paper firstly deals with the actual living situation of contemporary young Chinese artist together with considerations for specific historical …

The Explosion Development Of Chinese Contemporary Art Market From 2000 To 2015, Yaning Wang

MA Theses

After Chinese Culture Revolution, the brand new chapter was approaching which opened for the modern Chinese art history; Chinese contemporary art has been deepened understanding by the art market. In the context of an emerging market, art is as much a matter of cultural economy as socio-politics. Thus the thesis will focus on the challenges facing the market and how tradition and economics providing the framework for the sustainability of art market. It will present a historical overview of emergence of Chinese contemporary art the period of 2000 to 2015 and expose the unbreakable bind between the development of its …

Story Of Twin Cities, Who Will Be The Next Storm Center Of Art Fairs?, Rui Bian

MA Theses

Since 2000, with the rapid development of China's economy, the evolution of contemporary art fairs in China has been accelerated. This paper takes two representative cities, Beijing and Shanghai, as examples. In the past one decade, Shanghai and Beijing have respectively led the trend of contemporary art market due to various internal and external factors. This paper uses PEST model to analyze, trying to find out who will be the next center of contemporary art in the next ten years.

The first part of this paper mainly starts from the differentiations in policies and regional distributions of Chinese contemporary art …

How Does Contemporary Artists Consolidate Their Success And Achievements Through Social Media Platform Such As Instagram? : Case Study Of Successful Co-Existing Relationship Developed Between Contemporary Artists Ai Weiwei And Kaws With Their Instagram Account, Rouchen Yao

MA Theses

In the following thesis, I would compare and contrast the two art world phenomenon:Ai Weiwei and KAWS, whom have very distinctive artistic focus and style. And how the two artists utilize their social media platform to achieve different purposes and reflect different values. In the past few years, due to internet accessibility to the art world, online and social media platforms have become an intermediary between the art world and the masses, giving everyone access to art. Being household names from the art world, both of the artists generated a large number of fans on their social media platform of …

Growing Up In Civil Rights Richmond: A Community Remembers, N. Elizabeth Schlatter, Ashley Kistler, Laura Browder, Richard Waller, Myra Goodman Smith, Elvatrice Belsches, Michael Paul Williams

Exhibition Catalogs

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Growing Up in Civil Rights Richmond: A Community Remembers, Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art, University of Richmond Museums, January 17 to May 10, 2019.

Organized by the University of Richmond Museums, the exhibition was developed by Ashley Kistler, independent curator, and Laura Browder, Tyler and Alice Haynes Professor of American Studies, University of Richmond. The exhibition, related programs, and publication are made possible in part with funds from the Louis S. Booth Arts Fund and with support from the University’s Cultural Affairs Committee. The printed exhibition catalogue was made possible in …

Market Value Analysis Of Takashi Murakami's Artwork Under Howard Becker's Theory, Liu Yi-Ding

MA Theses

This paper is an analysis about the artist Takashi Murakami. As a representative of the corporate artist, he is favored by the Art business world while being criticized by many people. This paper adopts American sociologist Howard Becker's art world theory as a research tool to observe that the construction of Murakami and his art market is not the growth of genius, but the result of collective cooperation. Based on two decades of data on the art trade, Murakami has made his unique brand of ultra-flat theory and otaku work. These labels, along with internalization and external marketing, eventually gave …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …