Modern Art and Architecture Commons^™

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.

Exhibiting Art In A European Periphery? International Art In Sweden During The Cold War, Katarina Wadstein Macleod, Marta Edling, Pella Myrstener

Artl@s Bulletin

The project Exhibiting Art in a European Periphery? International Art in Sweden during the Cold War aimed to investigate international exhibitions in Sweden during the postwar period from circa 1945 to the end of the 1980s. The main objective was to find information beyond preconceived ideas of what is important, interesting, or simply good art. In this article, we present our method for searching through the archives and some of the findings and insights generated.

Art Contre/Against Apartheid At Lunds Konsthall: An Entangled History Of Art And Solidarity From Paris To Pretoria, Katarina Wadstein Macleod

Artl@s Bulletin

This article concerns the international touring exhibition Art contre/against Apartheid originating in France and which reached Lunds konsthall, Sweden in 1984 and was to tour the world for ten years. The aim with this exhibition was to raise awareness of the apartheid regime, cause international protest and ultimately remove the repressive political system. Using histoire croisée as a method this article investigates the different interests and stake-holders in the exhibition at Lunds konsthall, including the critique of the exhibition as resting on white supremacy. The purpose of the article is to locate the different intersections regarding international art, international politics …

Transgressing Time: Life And Death In The Portraiture Of Paula Modersohn-Becker, Elizabeth Ezekiel

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Paula Modersohn-Becker, 1876-1907, had a short, intense life – one in which death remained close by. This closeness is due to a high number of tragedies her family incurred, as well as her (correct) belief that she would die young. This apprehension for death, among other reasons that will be explored in this thesis, led her to be inspired by the Fayum mummy portraits, an ancient funerary art form dating back to 30-40 CE in the Greco-Roman period of Egyptian history. Aside from the exhibition entitled Paula Modersohn-Becker und die ägyptischen Mumienportraitsat the Museen Böttcherstraßethere there remains no scholarship directly …

Queer Bodies: Homoeroticism, Sensuality, And Erotica In Postmodern Fine Art Photography, Rosa Michel Pace

LSU Master's Theses

The queer body– describes the sum of assumptions and biases attributed to queer people, whereby a person’s own queer identity or expression is overshadowed by the generalizations, (mis)perceptions, and stereotypes that society imposes on that individual. Central to the scope of this thesis is the reality whereby the ostracization of queer people involves the association between the very body of the queer person with sexual acts deemed both deviant and immoral by a cis-heteronormative society. Society renders the queer body as pejoratively deviant simply on the basis of its existence alone, where any form of varied gender or sexual expression …

Futurist Art And Touch: Dinamismo Plastico, Tattilismo, Polimaterismo, Molly J. Everett

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis considers the Futurist engagement with touch, primarily through the artwork and writing of four Italian artists: Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916), F. T. Marinetti (1876–1944), Benedetta (Cappa) Marinetti (1897–1977), and Enrico Prampolini (1894–1956). Informed by childhood education, art theory and aesthetics, and perceptual psychology, these Futurists embraced tactility as a vehicle for avant-garde invention.

The Beehive, The Favela, The Castle, And The Ministry: Race And Modern Architecture In Rio De Janeiro, 1811–1945, Luisa Valle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation deploys a multidisciplinary and decolonial framework to investigate the architecture of cortiços, the Favela Hill, the Castelo Hill, and the Ministry of Education and Public Health (MES) building as constitutive of the history of modernization and modernity in the Centro (city center) of Rio de Janeiro, 1811-1945. The first three chapters investigate the distinct geographies, formal and material qualities, and populations of cortiços, the Favela Hill, and the Castelo Hill, as well as their racialization and essentialization by the “unsanitary” and “degenerate” labels bestowed upon these landscapes by the state. Traditional narratives and practices of modern architecture and …

Pop/Art: The Birth Of Underground Music And The British Art School, 1960–1980, Andrew Cappetta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Pop/Art: The Birth of Underground Music and the British Art School, 1960-1980” argues that the British art school became a training ground for underground musicians in the 1960s and the 1970s because of changes in art school pedagogy and policy in the post-war period. New educational philosophies propagated during the late 1950s and 1960s, above all Basic Design and Behaviorism, redefined the artist as an intermedial experimenter, collapsed distinctions between fine art and design, and theorized the art object as a dynamic and interactive matrix between the maker and viewer. These initiatives, which evolved from art school reforms that began …

Ambiguity Of Vision: Reimagining The Hypervisible Void, Kiwha Lee Blocman

Theses and Dissertations

Asking questions about what Painting is in the 21st century and the dominant narratives it can challenge, my paintings complicate the viewer’s reading of pictorial hierarchy and the projection of human relations in the world. I de-hierarchize and decentralize the compositional components that make up a painting by using patterns to create spatial depth, not European perspectival conventions. In dialogue with modernists such as Matisse who drew from the visual vocabulary of “The Orient”, my central forms derived from architecture and ornamental fragments possess a body-like presence. Further, I reinvent ancient Asian printmaking processes with oil paint. Observing the tenets …

Prometheus & The Body Beautiful: Arno Breker And The Weaponization Of The Greco-Roman Tradition In The Größe Deutsche Kunstausstellung, Sophia Maldonado

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

During the Third Reich (1933-1945), Hitler and the Nazis turned to the visual arts as a tool for propaganda to promote Hitler’s conception of the ideal people, i.e. the ‘Aryan’ race. Rooted in a calculate understanding of Greco-Roman civilization and culture, this conception of the ideal appropriated the visual vocabulary of the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Within the 1937 inaugural exhibition of the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung, a propagandistic effort designed to promote this ideal, Arno Breker, chief sculptor of the Nazi Party, would exhibit his Prometheus. Breker’s interpretation of this mythological figure stood as a representation of …

The Portrait And The Pedagogical Object: Art, Advertising, And Commerce In The Works Of Marcel Broodthaers, 1968-1971, D'Arcy Blake

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the opposition of language and object and the roles of art, poetry, advertising, and commodity in Marcel Broodthaers’s van Laack ad (1971). Through a theoretical analysis of Broodthaers’s works from 1968-1971, this study situates the enigmatic van Laack ad as one of the Belgian artist’s most significant, yet overlooked artworks.

Building For A New National Body: The Architecture Of Manuel Amábilis And Neomaya Modernity, Emily A. Cocco

Theses and Dissertations

In the history of architecture following the Mexican revolution, Yucatecan architect Manuel Amábilis (1889-1966) has often been passed over in favor of discussions of architects working in the nation’s cultural and political center, Mexico City, many of whom engaged in neocolonial and functionalist modern style to envision a modern Mexico transformed by the revolution. This omission is short-sighted, since Amábilis’s Maya revivalist architecture provides an iteration of postrevolutionary Mexican architecture that visually and ideologically manifests the socialist and proindingenous aims of the revolution while imagining a paradigm of modern nationalism that was not rooted in Western ideals. Amábilis’ neomaya architecture, …

“Paint What You Hate”: Philip Guston’S Hooded Figures And The Postponement Of The Exhibition Philip Guston Now, Thomas Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis interrogates the postponement of the Philip Guston Now exhibition, examining the justification for the postponement, the actions taken by the National Gallery of Art, and the effects of the postponement. My research examines the museum’s choice to cite social justice as the main context for understanding Philip Guston.

Memorial Craze: How War Memorials Have Been Changed By War, Jillian Bass

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

This thesis project argues that memorials constructed after 9/11 were designed specifically in a way that privileged and focused on the dead individually. By taking a look at memorials throughout American history, the study of memorialization sets up the stage for the way the lives of ordinary people have been memorialized throughout history. 9/11 is one of the most memorable days in the history of the world in the 21st century. However, the academic world has generally ignored the study of war memorials throughout American history as a subset of memorials. Chronicling memorials from the Civil War period to present …

Performative Disability: The Objectification Of Atypical Physiognomy In The Self-Portraits Of Egon Schiele, Sophia Maldonado

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

By the early-twentieth century, developments in medicine and psychology tremendously influenced the visual arts. From the medical photography of the Salpêtrière to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, the cultural attitudes and understandings of illnesses and treatments were available to artists whose work engaged with the medical community during this time. The oeuvre of Viennese Expressionist Egon Schiele demonstrates this influence by utilizing iconography related to disability. In order to construct his identity as an artist, Schiele turns to representations of atypical physiognomy that allow him to assert the identity of a ‘tortured artist’ and establish himself among the Viennese …

Architecture In Anime: Miyazaki's Motifs, Jack Collins

Honors Projects

Internationally known, celebrated, and respected, director Hayao Miyazaki has become a household name by transforming an industry through his films. This research focuses on Miyazaki’s process and the similarities he shares with architects, both in and out of his works. By initially examining his background, the three motifs of architecture, inspiration, and sustainability are explored through works like Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and more. The results of this research are to inform fans of both architecture and anime about the connection between someone who designs and builds the world, and one who designs and builds …

The 1895 Cézanne Show At Vollard’S Revisited, Robert Jensen

Art and Visual Studies Faculty Working Papers

The Cézanne show at Ambroise Vollard’s Paris gallery in November-December 1895 was a watershed moment for both artist and dealer. Both the artist and the dealer’s commercial successes date from this moment. The composition of Cézanne’s collectors was also largely divided by this exhibition. Who they were and what particular paintings they bought are listed below. The relative uniqueness of this solo exhibition is highlighted. The paper also addresses the still open questions as to how the paintings for the show were selected, by whom, and which pictures were included. In doing so it adds to the list of paintings …

Building For The Future: Functional, Energy-Efficient, And Beautiful Buildings By Snøhetta, Amanda J. Oross

Student Publications

The construction industry accounts for nearly 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions, which ultimately leads to climate change. Because of a lack of global consensus and accountability on a large scale about how to combat climate change, certain countries and cities are leading the charge on mitigation, since they tend to be more progressive and homogenous. Norway is one of those countries, and happens to be the headquarters for Snøhetta, a design company, that is designing buildings that are not only energy-efficient but also functional for the space in which it resides. Snøhetta very much values the interconnection between the …

Altering The Meaning Of Remembrance: The Influence Of Resurgent Nazi Perpetrators On The Jewish Museum Berlin, Zamara Tomko

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

This visual exhibit looks at various images of the Jewish Museum Berlin and the effects resurgent neo-Nazis had on its design. After 1989, the building saw alterations to its interpretation and the architect Daniel Libeskind's design due to a lack of funding because of reunification, political power gained by the right-wing parties, and xenophobia towards Jewish people and foreign workers. It evolved from a Cold War project meant to represent Berlin and Berlin Jewish history both distinctly and integrally to a symbol of reunited Germany that showcased the continual and persistent victimization of the Jewish people.

Cultural Predicaments: Neorealism In The Netherlands, 1927–1945, Stephanie Huber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation takes as its subject Dutch Magic Realism, also known as “Neorealism,” an unsettling style of figurative painting developed by Dutch painters Pyke Koch, Carel Willink, Charley Toorop, Raoul Hynckes, Dick Ket, and Wim Schuhmacher during a moment of rising totalitarian regimes in neighboring countries and the Nazi Occupation of The Netherlands. Like their European counterparts, these Dutch Magic Realists conveyed the experience of modern alienation by perversely appropriating stylistic characteristics and iconographic motifs of revered national schools of painting – in their case, Early Netherlandish and Northern Renaissance traditions.

The fortunes of Neorealism exemplify the pressures brought to …

Hudson Yards: Hybrid Capital's New Home, Massimo D. Scoditti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis focuses on the material and metaphysical aspects of the Hudson Yards, the largest private development in US History. With its roots in the administration of Michael Bloomberg, the site is representative of neoliberal ideology. It is also one in which cultural production is central. This is in terms of the rationalization and mythos of the building of the space itself and the dreamworlds created to obscure the mechanisms of extraction and accumulation that make such a complex possible. The Hudson Yards is particularly interesting because, as Cindi Katz might suggest, topography lines connect it to transnational capital. And …

Hellenikotita — Greekness: Constructing Greek Genre Painting, Visualizing National Identity, 1850–1900, Olga Zaferatos Karras

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1828, following a seven–year war waged against the Ottoman Empire and its nearly 400 years of subjugation, the newly–formed nation–state of Greece, “Hellas”, faced the daunting challenge of uniting a population that was as diverse as its multiple dialects. By mid–century, genre painting began to take shape. Eventually it was known in Greek as “ηθογραφία (“ethographia”) or “ethography,” from the word ήθος (ethos) or morals, referring to the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. Inspired by a literary vogue of the same name that predated genre painting, the anecdotal vignettes of …

“Mieux Vaut Goujat Debout Qu’Empereur Enterré !” : An Examination Of The Arts Incohérents Movement And Its Place In French Artistic Canon, Ashley Holt

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

No abstract provided.

The Sensible Body Of The Female Reader, Anoosheh Ghaderi

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

No abstract provided.

Women Of The Dalit Unrest: Rewriting Bodies, Reinforcing Resistance, Suddhadeep Mukherjee

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

The paper aims to take the scholarship on corporeal feminism and Dalit Studies forward by focusing on the Dalit woman’s body. The body is not treated as an inert surface in this paper but is considered as a transformative medium that can alter its embedded codifications and significations through transgressive performances in the face of systemic and systematized caste violence. In doing so the gendered body not only challenges to rewrite the Dalit epistemology from the vantage of resistance but also initiates a rethinking of Indian feminism. The paper begins with a discursive discussion on the importance of the gender …

Satirical Dissent: The Subversive Messaging Of Ad Reinhardt’S 1946 And 1961 Art Comics How To Look At Modern Art In America, Julie A. Schumacher

Dissertations and Theses

Through a close analysis of Ad Reinhard's 1946 and 1961 art comics "How to Look at Modern Art in America,” examined in the context of their times, this paper will argue that Reinhardt’s idealist view and involvement with abstraction, as he saw it in its “purest” form, was intrinsically formed and shaped by his Marxist anticapitalistic perspectives in response to his concurrent time. When these works are examined through the lens of Reinhard’s socialist politics, a parallel narrative surfaces where “pictures artists” also signifies capitalism and its capacity to harmonize and contaminate.

Lucretia Van Horn: The Artist’S Meaningful Impact On The Development Of Modernism In The Bay Area, Annie K. Roddy

MA Theses

Women artists lack recognition for their significant contributions to the development of regional modernism in the United States during the twentieth century. This study seeks to highlight the important impact American artist Lucretia Van Horn had on modernism in the Bay Area from the 1920s through the 1940s. The study addresses how the artist worked in advanced modernist styles, achieving local recognition and success, but was ultimately overshadowed by her male counterparts in the larger dialogue. The results reveal an artist at the forefront of avant-garde trends who deserves much wider recognition.

Re-Imagining Design For Affordable Housing In Mexico, Kenza Fernandez Dominguez

Scripps Senior Theses

Since the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto, affordable housing developments in Mexico have been produced in a massive, unsustainable scale. The speed at which these developments are produced equates to the carelessness that goes into their planning. At large, the developments’ monotonous design is aesthetically dehumanizing and fails to promote a sense of community. These developments lack basic infrastructure, and their residents have abandoned them, which has incentivized increased criminal activity.

In this paper, I will be looking at successful models of affordable housing globally, exploring the histories of communal living, and function of architectural collages. Based on my findings, …

Occult Conceptualism, Olivia Shao

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores and defines the term “Occult Conceptualism.” The term questions past models for Conceptual Art, in particular those rooted in Benjamin H. D. Buchloh’s 1990 text, “Conceptual Art 1962–1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of Institutions,” and Joseph Kosuth’s safeguarding of Conceptual Art in part two of his text “Art after Philosophy,” in which a number of artists (John Baldessari, Douglas Huebler, amongst others) are excluded from his canon. Arguing for a new approach to certain strains of conceptualism, this paper refutes the perspective that the conceptual movement was grounded only in theoretical and rationalist …