Modern Art and Architecture Commons^™

Radiance After Exile: Visionism And The Art Of M, Lola Montgomery

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

This essay introduces and critically examines Visionism, the artistic philosophy developed by contemporary Australian painter M. Emerging from a practice shaped by early success, prolonged creative exile, and eventual return, Visionism is presented not as a stylistic movement but as a visual philosophy concerned with atmosphere, symbolism, transcendence, and the persistence of intensity after critique. Situating Visionism within contemporary debates surrounding postmodernism and metamodernism, the essay argues that M's work occupies a distinctive position within a broader cultural shift toward renewed engagements with meaning, affect, and sincerity.

Drawing on the artist’s own reflections, alongside theoretical perspectives from David Sudnow, Timotheus …

Jadughar: The House Of Magic, Dhruvi A. Shah

Masters Theses

Jadughar or the House of Magic is what people call a 'museum' in parts of South Asia. The practice of museum making, at its origin, is the act of collecting, preserving, interpreting and representing a culture’s tangible and intangible heritage to make it accessible to diverse audiences. Since the early 19th century such practices have been performed at various kala bhandars (art centers) in India, without the need of a formal or institutional organisation. The British introduced the model of a ‘museum’ in South Asia, with the aim of not only preserving ethnographic collections, but also showcasing their power and …

Initial Type Craft, Micah Angelus

Theses and Dissertations

What kinds of objects can still think when the self-contained aesthetic object can no longer be taken for granted? The historical ruptures that have placed painting under crisis have also brought into view the fallacy of artistic autonomy, raising questions about how value, contemplation, and meaning persist under conditions of deconstruction.

Humanist Abstractions: Zilia Sánchez’S Forms Of Symbolism And The Reframing Of The Picture Plane, Sydney Srnka

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the culturally specific visual language within the work of Zilia Sánchez through an analysis of her biography and semiotic strategies, arguing that meaning in her work emerges through the materiality of form, rather than through conventional stylistic categorization. It reconsiders how art-historical movements are used to organize artists, proposing a framework better suited to Sánchez’s practice. The issues of reception and legibility have shaped Sánchez’s career as an exile whose experience of displacement informed her shaped canvases. These works articulated a simultaneously unique and universal sense of experience. In researching Sánchez’s history, an alternative story for the …

Public Art And Military Technology At The Mexico-U.S. Border: Disrupting Boundaries On Battlegrounds, Anna Luise Kaunert

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how contemporary artists Rubén Ortiz Torres, Chico MacMurtrie, rafa esparza, and Cassils transformed military technologies into powerful artworks that interrogate the Mexico-U.S. border as a battlefield. Together, their works illuminate militarization and surveillance technologies at the border and the violent enforcement of U.S. immigration policy.

Signs In The Landscape: Authenticity, Ambiguity, And The Work Of Richard Long, Heather Green-Gulez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Richard Long’s walking-based practice as a sustained and direct engagement with lived experience, tracing his development through walking landscapes, marking, and documentation. It negotiates tensions between reductive and hermeneutic readings, ultimately arguing that Long gestures toward pre-agrarian land ethics, raising broader questions of authenticity in modern life.

Building Artistic Identity, Visual Heritage, And Contemporaneity Of The Arab World: Case Studies Of The 1974 Arab Art Biennale And 'Calligraphy In Contemporary Arab Painting' At The 1989 Havana Biennial, Amanda Msallem

Theses and Dissertations

The 1974 Arab Art Biennale held in Baghdad, Iraq, and the exhibition Calligraphy in Contemporary Arab Painting of the 1989 Havana Biennial in Cuba are unique biennial initiatives that represent a decisive transitional period of modern art of the Arab world, during which Arab artists moved from the aspirations of the Pan-Arab collective and toward increasingly individualized, experimental practices with local cultural specificity.

Beyond Recognition: The Surrealist Strategy Of Face Concealment In The Portraits Of René Magritte And Ewa Juszkiewicz, Darina Kravchenko Eldridge

MA Theses

This dissertation investigates the evolution of the Surrealist strategy of face concealment from a modernist device of perceptual estrangement into a contemporary tool of feminist and postcolonial critique within portraiture. By obscuring the most recognisable marker of identity, it evokes a complex and unsettling emotional response in the viewer, transforming the act of looking at another person into an encounter with absence. The study situates this transformation within broader aesthetic and ideological discourses, drawing on feminist art history as articulated by Linda Nochlin and Griselda Pollock, alongside John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, Jacques Derrida’s hauntology, the Zeigarnik effect and Guy …

Faik Tagirov And Tatar Constructivism: The Making Of A New Tatar Book, Miriam Akhmetshin

Scripps Senior Theses

Working in the style of constructivism, Faik Tagirov primarily designed book covers for Tatar agitational literature in the 1920s. Studying at VKhUTEMAS and working for numerous publishing houses, Tagirov participated in several domestic and international exhibitions with well-known artists like Aleksandr Rodchenko and El Lissitzky. Tagirov utilized photomontage, geometricism, and unique typographical designs to create potent materials for a Tatar population. Current scholarship fails to adequately acknowledge the diverse influences impacting the work of non-Russian artists such as Tagirov. Using visual and iconographic analysis, I argue for an approach that recognizes Tagirov's work as syncretic in nature, utilizing both indigenous …

Still Life As A Photographer: Visual And Mnemonic References To Photography In Yasuo Kuniyoshi’S 1944 Broken Objects And Room 110, Tara A. Attanasio

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889-1953) and his still life paintings titled Broken Objects and Room 110 as modes of implicit portraiture, self-declaration, and self-reclamation. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, government authorities deemed Kuniyoshi an “enemy alien” and confiscated his photographic equipment. Painted two years following his camera’s confiscation, Broken Objects and Room 110 contain references that recall Kuniyoshi’s prewar photographic practice and visualize his response to the loss of his camera. I foreground my analysis with Kuniyoshi’s Self-Portrait as a Photographer from 1924 and his photography from the 1930s to detail his metacritical relationship …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Reconstructing Art And Evidence: Forensic Architecture In Institutional Settings, Makenzie Smith

University Scholar Projects

Forensic Architecture (FA) is a London-based multidisciplinary research collective and human rights agency that uses digital modeling, architectural and spatial analysis, and open-sourced images to investigate and present visual evidence of human rights violations committed by state governments, militaries, and corporations. The team of architects, software developers, filmmakers, investigative journalists, scientists, and lawyers, collaborates with civil society groups, witnesses, and victims to establish a counternarrative in the service of human rights and social justice, exhibiting their investigations in institutional settings as varied as legal courts and parliamentary tribunals, citizen assemblies, mass media, universities, and art museums. My research focuses on …

Reconstructing Art And Evidence: Forensic Architecture In Institutional Settings, Makenzie Smith

Honors Scholar Theses

Forensic Architecture (FA) is a London-based multidisciplinary research collective and human rights agency that uses digital modeling, architectural and spatial analysis, and open-sourced images to investigate and present visual evidence of human rights violations committed by state governments, militaries, and corporations. The team of architects, software developers, filmmakers, investigative journalists, scientists, and lawyers, collaborates with civil society groups, witnesses, and victims to establish a counternarrative in the service of human rights and social justice, exhibiting their investigations in institutional settings as varied as legal courts and parliamentary tribunals, citizen assemblies, mass media, universities, and art museums. My research focuses on …

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

Painting The Other: Mary Cassatt's Spanish Portraits And The Feminine Gaze, Delaney Batter

Undergraduate Theses in Art History

The historical viewing of women artists, in conjunction with Mary Cassatt’s biography and later depictions of women and children, suggests that Cassatt's gender is identified within the art historical canon as an essential component to the interpretation of her work. The language attached to Cassatt's work is most often taken from discourses surrounding female-produced artwork of the nineteenth century, attaching passive and stereotypically feminine attributes like 'delicate,' 'light,' and 'tender' to the style, composition, and subjects of her works. These characteristics were among the accepted nineteenth-century descriptions of artworks, with inherent femininity translating to inherent domesticity.

Rather than further reducing …

Minoru’S Mecca: The World Trade Center, 9/11, And The End Of Architectural Modernism, Henry D. Senters

Anthós

From 1966 until 2001, the World Trade Center complex and its skyscraper Twin Towers were a defining architectural feature of New York City and a landmark in architectural modernism. Minoru Yamasaki, the project’s architect, intended the massive complex to be a “mecca” that drew in and inspired urban workers, exemplifying the Islamic architectural language that he incorporated into his architecture. In this article, Senters examines how architectural criticism evolved while the towers stood and after they were destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attack. Tracking early reviews, hopeful about the complex’s trade-promoting purpose, and the perennial—though limited—negative reception of the complex’s …

Queerform/Ing, Matthew Solon-Lee Weimer

Art Theses and Dissertations

My artwork is situated within and around vessels and the Queer Homoerotic World and explores sexuality as a Demisexual within them. This is accomplished through the two processes of my creation, Minivague and Queerform/ing: balancing sexual tension and explicit expression, while subverting traditional norms and stereotypes with queerness to distance oneself from stereotypical Gay Art. Altering/emphasizing makes the artwork more romantic, lighter, whimsical, softer, and tender than the figure/s and the situations actually are. The process is also emphasizing what one sees or wants to be seen. The Pink Boy becomes a celebration of intimacy of any form. I discuss …

With Love, ; An Interdisciplinary And Intersectional Look At Why Creativity Is Essential, Theo Starr Gardner

Whittier Scholars Program

My Whittier Scholars Program self-designed major, Teaching Creativity, is a mixture of Art, Literature, and Education classes. My research and praxis classes have been focused on the ‘how?’s and 'why?’s of creativity, so it felt only right that my project should be a constructivist, generative project. The project I have been working on throughout my time at Whittier, and that has just fully come to fruition on April 11th, 2024, was a solo art gallery/open mic event entitled ‘With Love,’. With Love, was conceptually inspired by the research I’ve conducted on creativity and creative arts education over the past few …

A Biography And Case Study On Marthe Wéry Her Ceaseless Exploration Of The Components Of Painting: Tracing Journeys In The Artist’S Life And Work, Sarah Grace Jones

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis investigates Belgian artist Marthe Wéry’s oeuvre, determines art-historical contexts for her paintings, and examines the many milestones that exemplify her work. Her monochromatic paintings, radical experiments with paint, empirical way of thinking, and exploration of architecture defend her robust career and demand involvement in today’s art historical conversation.

Aguaaaa!!!, Cory Villegas

Theses and Dissertations

“AGUA” is a call for new models of learning and sharing, celebrating the diasporic as a place of global revolution. Salsa, rooted in Latin American and Afro-Caribbean histories, is choreographer Cory Villegas’s expression of cultural legacy. As an Afro-diasporic dance, Salsa carries the wealth and variety of African and Indigenous roots. Villegas contextualizes her thesis event “Las Leyendas: An Afro Cuban Suite,” presenting herself and her troupe Soul Dance Co. as evidence that contradicts the erasure of Latin & Caribbean Culture in US dance history. The paper uses English and Spanish, written, visual, and oral materials with an accompanying webpage.

Mourning Before Death: Ferdinand Hodler And Valentine Godé-Darel, Nicolas Dowling

Theses and Dissertations

“Mourning Before Death” explores Ferdinand Hodler's (1853-1918) artistic relationship with death and grief culminating in an examination of his series of paintings and drawings depicting the slow death of his mistress, Valentine Godé-Darel. This thesis primarily utilizes the theories of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross as a framework for understanding Hodler’s work.

Stephen Antonakos: The Spiritual Tenets Of Neon, Seville Partida

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Working without paint or brushes, Stephen Antonakos (1926—2013) created murals of neon light. These sweeping gestures of buzzing color achieve a meditative and spiritual quality yet remain accessible in their communal and urban settings. Douglas Crimp's 1981 essay, “The End of Painting '' argues that the most promising art of the time mounts a thorough critique on the myths of humanism, and consequently the cherished tropes of expressive painting. Antonakos’s career spans this period of upheaval, fraught by fears over the looming death of modernist painting as well as critical and curatorial activity that interrogated art’s structures. Although Antonakos seems …

Ripe Spoils, Yan Cynthia Chen

Theses and Dissertations

Chen’s practice primarily focus on sculptures and installation. She explores the interplay between the idea of nature and the constructed environment, by examining how language informs what we know. The central thesis, "Ripe Spoils", employs citrus fruits as symbols for bodily experiences and personal identity, investigating their cultural and historical significance. Her sculptures summon the qualities and embedded meanings in materials like paper pulp and clay, wax and citrus fruits, often resulting in abstracted forms evocative of the human body. This thesis paper and exhibition reflect on themes like mortality and the essence of self.

Chinese-English Dictionary Enable Select Search …

“How Did Guernica Become The Important Painting And The Universal Symbol It Is Today?", Or Lebel

MA Theses

This thesis explores the intriguing journey that propelled "Guernica" from the initial obscurity of a commissioned artwork to its current status as a globally recognized symbol. The research unravels the multifaceted processes that have contributed to the transformation of a relatively overlooked artwork into an important painting and a universal emblem of protest, antiwar, and hope. The research addresses the fundamental question of how "Guernica" evolved into an important and universally recognized painting. Answering this question allows me to explore and explain how "Guernica," despite its lack of immediate recognition, grew to possess an enduring significance. The research also tackles …

The Hospitality Of Doubt, Ian Grieve

Art Theses and Dissertations

This paper discusses the last two years of research toward a Master of Fine Art in Studio Art. I mainly address my painting practice, but while in the program, I have worked in collage, ceramics, intaglio printmaking, and sculpture. My paintings are thick, multilayered, and often contain ambiguous narratives. The pictures develop through engagement, openness, and response within the work. I seek and embrace connection with viewers of the work. The spectator ‘completes’ the art and enhances or alters the artworks meaning by observing it and applying their individual perspectives. I seek to incorporate a sense of nostalgia and familiarity. …

Archi-Comics, Timothy Gatto

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Humor in architecture is not at the forefront of architect’s minds, this comes from architects need to be deemed serious. This way of thinking is what has backed architects up into a corner banal and stagnant architecture. Architecture is the art of context, everything in architecture is referential. Humor is foundationally the exact same way, the incongruity theory makes humor possible by putting a concept into context with things and finding contradictions in the process, thus developing a joke. Each of these arts, humor and architecture, are that of context and when architecture is delivered like humor, it points out …

(Not) Knowing, Jared Friedman

Theses and Dissertations

Jared Friedman’s work creates monuments out of banal common objects. Through acrylic paintings on- Astroturf, burlap, canvas, and upholstery fabric- he explores the ambiguity of the unremarkable, such as the condenser coils on the back of a refrigerator. In, (Not) Knowing, he parses the difference between knowing and understanding.

Making And Taking: Evaluating The Ethnographic Gaze In Graciela Iturbide’S Los Que Viven En La Arena, Lauren Gonzales

Theses and Dissertations

Graciela Iturbide’s career-defining engagement with indigenous subjects began with a commission by the Mexican government's Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI) to document the Seri people. This thesis contextualizes the resulting photobook, Los que viven en la arena (1981), within the history of indigenous representation in Mexico and the controversial policies of the INI.

Spirituality And Abstract Art, Hao Zheng

MA Theses

Through a close analysis of abstract art and metaphysics (ontological and psychical), the paper examines how metaphysics might be related to abstract art, as well as the early emergence of abstract art in diverse cultures around the world, and its development from the 19th to the 20th century in the modern art world. The paper conducts an examination of some modern abstract art pioneers, as perceived by general public, such as Wassily Kandinsky and Agnes Pilton, who
experimented with the art form in the 19th and 20th centuries, and their intentions based on metaphysics: spirituality and mythology are included in …

The Feminization Of Mexico City In The Late Twentieth Century: Polvo De Gallina Negra, Pola Weiss, And Lourdes Grobet, Alexis N. Corral

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis centers on select artworks in public intervention, photography and video as an exploration of female's relationship to Mexico City's social landscape and urban space during the late 1970s into the early 1990s. In three case studies, I explore historical urban planning, gender relations, and the effects of modernization.