Modern Art and Architecture Commons^™

"Silent Salesmen," Skeptical Consumers: American Images In A Divided Berlin, 1949-67, Lauren Richman

Art History Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the visual language of American cultural images disseminated in Cold War Berlin and investigates how such institutional, lens-based media played a role in the country’s grappling with its postwar identity. Divided Berlin, with porous borders from 1949 to 1961, embodied a “final frontier,” “Western showcase;” a synecdoche of larger American geopolitical interests during a time when information and images defined the Cold War. Existing art historical studies of Cold War-era visual propaganda emphasize the prototypical East/West, communist/capitalist dichotomies, but often do not focus on the impact of the United States as Germany’s most prolific western occupier.

Across …

Concrete Poetry, Sara Ghazi Asadollahi

Graduate School of Art Theses

This text addresses my work as an artist and defines it in the context of the following subjects: The concept of ruins, which highlights the relationship between architecture and landscape; the formal and metaphorical dialectic between absence and presence in abandoned places; and the idea of dystopia, which emerges from that in-between space where the real dissolves into the imaginary. At the same time, my work is inspired by the visual culture of cinema and literature, principally within the science-fiction genre, and draws upon my observation of abandoned buildings in Tehran, my native city. These urban ruins are products of …

Women Artists Shows·Salons·Societies: Towards A Global History Of All-Women Exhibitions, Catherine Dossin, Hanna Alkema

Artl@s Bulletin

The Women Artists Shows·Salons·Societies project was launched in 2017 as a collaboration between Artl@s and AWARE. Combining AWARE’s ambitions to restore the presence of 20th-century women artists in the history of art, and Artl@s’s desire to provide scholars with the data and tools necessary to question the canonical art historical narratives through quantitative and cartographic analyses, we decided to work on group exhibitions of women artists.
Our first ambition is to build a community of scholars and work together to develop a common terminology and even possibly a common and consistent methodology to study these events, because the ones used …

Femmes Artistes Italiennes Du Xxe Siècle : Il Complesso Di Michelangelo, Rome 1977, Laura Iamurri

Artl@s Bulletin

Une exposition historique de femmes artistes s’ouvrit à Rome en février 1977 : installée dans une galerie privée, la première rétrospective consacrée aux artistes italiennes du XX^e siècle avait été organisée à l’occasion de la parution du livre Il complesso di Michelangelo [Le complexe de Michel-Ange], écrit par l’artiste Simona Weller. Cet ouvrage, premier essai de recensement de la présence féminine dans l’art contemporain en Italie, citait 270 artistes tout au long du siècle, la plupart d’entre elles oubliées ou inconnues ; seules les artistes professionnelles étaient prises en considération.

Se Rendre Visible Dans L’Espagne De Franco: Le Salón Femenino De Arte Actual (1962-1971), Maria Lluïsa Faxedas, Isabel Fontbona, Patricia Mayayo

Artl@s Bulletin

The paper examines the history and the critical reception of the Salón femenino del arte actual, an annual all-female exhibition organized by a group of women artists in Barcelona between 1962 and 1971. Unique at the time, the Salón challenged the traditional role attributed to women under Franco's dictatorship, managing at the same time to obtain support from local authorities. The paper argues that it was the ability of the organisers to take advantage of political ambivalence, to find a delicate balance between complicity and resistance, which allowed the exhibition to survive for a decade.

Women's Art Club And Women’S Group Exhibitions In Zagreb From 1928 Until 1940, Darija Alujević, Dunja Nekić

Artl@s Bulletin

In 1927 painters Nasta Rojc and Lina Crnčić Virant, inspired by their British colleagues founded the Women's Art Club in Zagreb. From 1928 until 1940 the Club organized group exhibitions of its members. The main idea of the Club was to improve arts and crafts, to organize female exhibitions and to collaborate with other international women associations. The Club took part in the organisation of the exhibition of Bulgarian women artists and the exhibition of the Little Entente of Women held in 1938 in Zagreb. Women`s Art Club was an important factor of the female artists' emancipation – organizing the …

The Exhibitions Of The Femmes Artistes Modernes (Fam), Paris, 1931-38, Paula J. Birnbaum

Artl@s Bulletin

The Société des Femmes Artistes Modernes (FAM) opened up a productive space for women artists who were active in Paris during the 1930s through annual multigenerational exhibitions and international collaborations. I argue that FAM embodied a paradox: on the one hand, it supported artists wishing to question stereotypes of gender, race, class, and nation; on the other, its institutional structure and leadership did not challenge patriarchal assumptions about women’s subordinate role in society. The paper explores this tension by comparing the work and critical reception of several artists in the group who represented the theme of motherhood.

L'Esposizione Internazionale Femminile Di Belle Arti (Torino, 1910-1911; 1913). Note Su Genere, Arte E Professione In Italia All'inizio Del Xx Secolo, Francesca Lombardi

Artl@s Bulletin

Il contributo intende ricostruire la vicenda delle Esposizioni Internazionali Femminili di Belle Arti (1910-11; 1913), prima manifestazione artistica di taglio internazionale riservata esclusivamente alle donne organizzata in Italia. Promosse a Torino dalla rivista La Donna, le due rassegne si svolsero in un momento storicamente determinante per l'affermazione di un nuovo status delle artiste, contribuendo a dare visibilità e legittimità al fenomeno della produzione artistica femminile. La ricerca ripercorre, sulla scorta soprattutto di documenti d'epoca e fonti d'archivio, la storia e gli esiti di questa innovativa esperienza, evidenziando la complessità delle reti istituzionali, sociali, di patronage e matronage che concorsero …

In Present Past: Sun Tunnels And The Historic Reconstruction Of Vision, Patrice M. Capobianchi

Theses and Dissertations

The following study investigates how Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels makes effective use of time and land to reprogram the modern viewer’s eye. By utilizing sculpture that is reminiscent of pre-historic observatories as an observational framing device against the landscape topography, the artwork succeeds in presenting a historic reconstruction of vision.

Landscape Of Portraiture: The Process Of Assimilation And Reconciliation In Search Of Identity Of Eighteenth Century England, Aram Park

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the use of landscape paintings embedded within English conversation pieces of the eighteenth century with an emphasis on the art works of Arthur Devis and Johan Zoffany, exploring the way they influenced the development of an English school of painting during this century.

Two Become One. Collaboration In Life And Work: Emilia’S Role In The Work Of The Artistic Duo Ilya And Emilia Kabakov, Elena Coureau

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the artistic collaboration of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov in terms of co-authorship. Through a discussion of collaboration in diverse fields, this paper develops an understanding of the artists’ decision to join forces and highlights Emilia Kabakov’s artistic talent and originality, diverging from the previous scholarship.

Enmesh: The Art Of Trauma And Recovery, Joanna Pottle

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Liminal Space is an artistic installation within the ongoing, interdisciplinary creative/research project "Enmesh: The Art of Trauma and Recovery.” Utilizing a combination of research methods, creative processes, and cultural inspirations, this project asks the following questions: how can the artistic process (this project serving as a preliminary case study) parallel various modes of recovery and healing? How can this objective be visually communicated through a mixed media approach of drawing, painting, and printmaking and how can this approach be an effective tool of communication? What can we conclude from both modes of work (solitarily or collectively)? How do they accomplish …

The Narrative Of Revolution: Socialism And The Masses 1911-1917, Stephen K. Walkiewicz

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to situate The Masses magazine (1911-1917) within a specific discursive tradition of revolution, revealing a narrative pattern that is linked with discourse that began to emerge during and after the French Revolution. As the term “socialism” begins to resonate again within popular American political discourse (and as a potentially viable course of action rather than a curse for damnable offense), it is worthwhile to trace its significance within American history to better understand its aesthetic dimensions, its radical difference, and its way of devising problems and answers. In short, this thesis poses the question: what ideological structures …

The Villa Baizeau And The Casa O’Gorman: The Modern House In 1929 Through Two Case Studies, Nora L. Boyd

Theses and Dissertations

Using as case studies two houses designed and built in the years 1928-1931 in Mexico City and Tunis, which early scholars connected to the Swiss architect Le Corbusier, this study illuminates inherent biases in architectural history and proposes a more historically rigorous framework, reoriented around individual buildings rather than architects.

Ornament And The Vienna Secession: A Study Of The 1902 Beethoven Exhibition, Chika Jenkins

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis examines the vital roles of ornament in Vienna Secession’s Beethoven Exhibition (1902), the embodiment of Gesamtkunstwerk and artistic freedom. Gustav Klimt and Joseph Maria Olbrich evoked various senses, alluded to Apollonian and Dionysian aspects of artistic creation, and celebrated its evolution and freedom, inspired by Alois Riegl.

Seen And Unseen: Visualizing Contradictions In Postwar Japan, 1950s–1960s, Christina Lai

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis offers a comparative study on how photography visualizes the political dynamics, ideological and psychological contradictions in postwar Japan. The discussion includes the exhibition The Family of Man in Tokyo (1956), Werner Bischof and Robert Capa’s photographs of Japan, and local photographers Ken Domon and Shomei Tomatsu.

Framing The City: Photography And The Construction Of São Paulo, 1930–1955, Danielle J. Stewart

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Between 1930 and 1955 São Paulo, Brazil experienced a period of accelerated growth as the population nearly quadrupled from 550,000 to two million. In response, the municipal government undertook an aggressive public works program and commercial building boomed. Photographic representations of the cityscape were essential in directing modern São Paulo’s physical evolution because they reflected both the real—a chaotically growing megacity—and the ideal—a literally new, modernized space. This dissertation centers on four case studies of artists practicing different photographic modalities in order to analyze the symbiotic relationship between São Paulo's urban development and its photographic representation.

Construction sites, scaffolding, and …

Crossing The Atlantic: Italians In Argentina And The Making Of A National Culture, 1880–1930, Lauren A. Kaplan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Between 1880-1930, Argentina took in millions of Italian immigrants, contributing to the largest voluntary diaspora in modern history. This dissertation examines how Argentina’s open immigration policy dovetailed with the formation of a national artistic style, generating new perspectives on how immigrants, particularly Italians, proactively shaped Argentine culture while also becoming enmeshed in an intricate geo-political relationship that spanned generations and regimes. This project takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon research from anthropology, social history, political science, and nationalism studies in order to produce new insights about art and national identity in Argentina around the turn of the twentieth century.

Though …

Dance Of Exile: The Sakharoffs’ Visual Performances In Montevideo (1935–1948), Pablo Munoz Ponzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the life-work chronology of the dancers and choreographers Clotilde von Derp (whose surname then was Sakharoff) and Alexander Sakharoff, who were exiled in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, between 1941 and 1948. During their stay in the Rio de la Plata region, the Sakharoffs stirred up the art scene by performing extremely detailed dances with great attention to costume design. This thesis begins with a review of the reception of the dancers’ performances by the artistic and cultural circles in Montevideo, arguing that the Sakharoffs’ “queer” trajectory resonated with the Uruguayan artistic community, influencing the creation …

Raman And Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy For Forensic Analysis: Case Studies On The Identification Of Illicit Substances And Artist Pigments, Abed Haddad

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Raman spectroscopy is an effective tool for detecting trace amounts of material by fingerprint-like vibrational spectra. At times, the weak intensity of Raman scattering can make it difficult to distinguish trace materials. This shortcoming is addressed by surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), which produces strong signal enhancements when target compounds are near metal nanoparticles. For the first part of this thesis, the identification of fentanyl and carfentanil, main culprits in the opioid epidemic, was done using normal Raman and the SERS spectroscopy. As an aid in the assignment of the spectral lines, a computational model was built using Density Functional Theory …

Between The Cracks: From Squatting To Tactical Media Art In The Netherlands, 1979–1993, Amanda S. Wasielewski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the early 1980s, Amsterdam was a battleground. During this time, conflicts between squatters, property owners, and the police frequently escalated into full-scale riots. Although the practice of squatting was legally protected in the Netherlands, the formation of a social movement around squatting in the mid- to late ’70s brought about a turbulent period exacerbated by economic hardship and widespread youth unemployment. Those active in the squatters’ movement sought to carve out new spaces in the fabric of the city, guided by anarchist politics and a desire for autonomy. These cracks, or temporary autonomous zones, in the established order created …

Mechanical Kingdoms: Sound Technologies And The Avant-Garde, 1928–1933, Lauren Rosati

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Against accepted histories of the historical avant-garde, which have elevated artistic production in traditional media while suppressing sonic practices, this dissertation argues that artist-engineers working across Europe and the United States independently, if simultaneously, turned their attention to emerging sound technologies as new media for creative experimentation by the early 1930s. This spectrum of activity demonstrates the significance of sound in avant-garde practice, and indicates a wide-ranging artistic engagement with technological devices intended for mass audiences. While the common understanding of the relation between art and technology in this period amounts to one of mere enthusiasm for the novel formal …

Reworking The White-Masculine Ideal, Steven H. Gonzalez

Art Theses and Dissertations

This text functions as an exploration of self through artistic practice, a designated space for reflection on contemporary Queer experience. In looking specifically at the permeation of the idealized-white-masculine figure as found within Western visual culture, social media and gay pornography become isolated as sites where these figures are commonly found. This line of inquiry defines how the ideal is reified through these differing digital platforms and the social implications the homogenized male form has on raced individuals. In addition to determining the image of the perfect masculine physique through research, this text expands on how its' imaged representation becomes …

Constraint And Control, Patricia Ayres

Theses and Dissertations

I have long considered themes of the body. Drawing on my knowledge as a fashion designer, I bring materials and hardware from the fashion industry into my artwork transforming and rendering them non-functional. My sculptures relate to stories of isolation, separation, and confinement. The following pages will analyze how the United States penal system controls, constrains and restricts the body through physical and psychological wounds. Furthermore, they will examine how the Catholic Church controls people’s minds and behavior through a ritualistic belief system.

Umberto Boccioni's States Of Mind, Sonya Shrier

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Umberto Boccioni’s series the States of Mind (1911) and discusses how these works represent a breakthrough in the artist’s search to find a pictorial expression for concepts that occupied him throughout his career. The States of Mind exists in four complete iterations each comprised of three images: The Farewells, Those Who Go and Those Who Stay.The first set of oil paintings, begun in late summer of 1911, are in the Divisionist style and are in the collection of the Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Milan. A set of charcoal and contè drawings on paper, likely completed in …

Expanding Experimentalism: Art And Popular Music At The Kitchen In New York City, 1971-1985, Sarah A. Cooper

Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores artists' engagement with popular music at the interdisciplinary alternative space, the Kitchen, from 1971 to 1985. It seeks a critical language to challenge institutional frameworks to account for the creative output of artists' bands and the relationship between parallel and hybrid popular music and avant-garde performance practices.

The "I" Of The Artist-Curator, Natalie Musteata

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation charts the proliferation of artist-curated exhibitions in museums and institutions of art from 1969 to the early 2010s. It is my contention that the artist-curated exhibitions of these four decades can be divided chronologically into several types: in the 1970s and ’80s, they disrupted museological conventions and helped contemporize the (perceived) aging collections of historical institutions; in the late 1980s and ’90s, they tackled pressing social and political issues, reimagining the practice of “institutional critique”; in the late 1990s and 2000s, they indulged in solipsistic investigations of the artist’s psyche, reinforcing the traditional, romantic conception of the artist …

On The Use Of Geometric Elements In The Works Of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy And Piet Mondrian, Kimberly Spayd, Molly Reynolds, Christian Lansinger

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Working in overlapping artistic circles in the first half of the twentieth century, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Piet Mondrian had very different intentions for how their pieces would affect viewers. But while their aims differed dramatically, the individual techniques they employed were both rooted in a mathematical foundation. Moholy-Nagy used simple two-dimensional shapes, scaled repetition of those shapes, and variations in perspective to illustrate the potential benefits of machine technology to the common person. Mondrian, alternatively, limited the elements in his work to perpendicular lines, asymmetry, and a dedicated adherence to the plane in order to align his viewer's metaphysical state …

A Didactic Teaching And Learning Project In Art Market Research. Researching And Publishing The History Of Commercial Art Dealing, Nadine Oberste-Hetbleck

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

In addition to research, one of the main tasks of art historians is the authoring of academically and stylistically sound texts in differing genres. This case study of the research and publishing project Zur Geschichte des Düsseldorfer Kunsthandels (A History of Commercial Art Dealing in Düsseldorf) will demonstrate how research and writing can be integrated into teaching. The project involved supervised work with source materials, data visualization, semi-structured interviews (oral history), a supplementary writing workshop, as well as detailed feedback from a writing instructor, the teacher, and fellow participants in the seminar. In addition, the high practical relevance of the …

Japanese-English Translation: Kitaōji Rosanjin--A Few Words For Aspiring Potters, Or Concerning The Relation Of The Person To The Work Of Art, Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Translation of 「陶芸家を志す者のために：芸術における人と作品の関係について」、北大路魯山人著—a speech delivered by Japanese potter, painter, lacquer artist, and restaurateur Kitaōji Rosanjin at Alfred State University, NY in April 1954. Part of a noncommissioned work in progress: Kitaōji Rosanjin: Reflections on Pottery, Travel, and Culinary Life All rights reserved, Christopher Southward (2019). Source, Aozora Bunko (a digital archive of Japanese-language literary work in the public domain): General website: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/ Current text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/001403/files/55081_54778.html