Theory and Criticism Commons^™

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 …

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.

That Way: An Examination Of Male Relationships In Film During The Hays Code, Jane Knudsen

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The Hays Code (1934-1968) influenced the construct of United States masculinity and the discourse surrounding masculine presentation between the 1920s to the 1960s. The Hays Code and World War II affected the culture surrounding male/male relationships in the United States. Previous research done by David Lugowski (1999) and Jeffrey Suzik (1999) shows that both World Wars led to crises of masculinity in which the hegemonic ideal of masculinity was restructured to establish men as providers and warriors, and Code-era films reflected the discourse. To understand the gender roles in the 20^th century, I analyzed the Hays code, male bonds, …

Lutz Bacher: 1975-2019, Jeremy Gloster

Theses and Dissertations

"Lutz Bacher: 1975-2019" is a monographic study of the artist Lutz Bacher (1943-2019), detailing the artist's trajectory from participant in the Bay Area photography scene of the mid-1970s to an established figure in the art world. Alongside this exposition, the thesis contends theoretically with Bacher's work, turning toward the theorist Peter Osborne's recent writings to examine Bacher's multifarious engagements with the photographic image and her own stagings of contemporaneity.

Woven Symphony: Exploring The Parallels Between Weaving And Music, Qianwen Yu

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Weaving and music are art forms often perceived as unrelated but actually share deep connections and fascinating similarities. In this presentation, I will first briefly introduce the impact of the 19th-century Jacquard loom on the invention of the Player Piano, a musical technology that evolved into the modern "MIDI" computer audio notation system. Second, I will explore the similarities found in both weaving and musical composition by presenting some of my own media installation art works. These works translate musical scores into woven textures, and vice versa, creating symphonies and revealing new sensory ways to appreciate textiles and music. I …

Digital Reproduction: The Degradation Of Art Viewership, Zoe Wallis Weingarten

MA Theses

This thesis explores the impact of the ease of photographic reproduction on the
/="/">experience of contemporary art viewership. This study establishes historical precedent and explains the phenomenon of the serial photographic reproduction of works of art by contemporary audiences. In doing so, the thesis identifies the implications of reproductions on the original work of art they replicate as well as the consequences of such reproduction. The photographic duplication of artworks in the museum allows the viewer to recommodify the artwork, become its quasi-possessor, and alter its meaning and function. This study is centered around the argument that this widespread …

Warhol Uncovered: From Byzantium To Pop, Kassandra Ibrahim

MA Theses

Despite being one of the most extensively researched artists of the twentieth century, Andy Warhol’s identity as a Carpatho-Rusyn Byzantine Catholic is often omitted by a majority of sources. Inspired by the 2020-2021 exhibition Andy Warhol: Revelation, this thesis examines the aesthetic influence that the artist’s religious upbringing had on his oeuvre. By examining Eastern Christian icons and church interiors, I define key characteristics of the Byzantine aesthetic — gold grounds, stylized frontal figures, flattening of depth, seriality, excessive decoration, etc. — and identify its usage in Warhol’s Pop Art. I also explore the Carpatho-Ruysn folk art tradition of pysanky …

Paths To The Abstraction: Kandinsky And Rothko, Vera Schueler

MA Theses

This thesis explores the artistic journeys of Kandinsky and Rothko, focusing on underlying motivations that led them towards the realm of abstraction. Kandinsky and Rothko played pivotal roles in the development and advancement of abstraction in the art world. They shared the belief that only non-figurative art had the power to convey deep meaning and evoke profound emotions, going beyond mere representation of the physical world. Despite their divergent artistic paths, artists were united by the idea of the transformative power of artistic expression and aimed to transcend to the viewer the energy and concepts of their vision through delving …

“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 …

Laurie Anderson: The Weather, Annie Dell'aria

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Jamie Robertson: Make For Higher Ground, Elizabeth S. Hawley

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Troy Thomas, Poussin’S Women: Sex And Gender In The Artist’S Works, James R. Jewitt

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Art Inquries Vol Xviii No 4 2023 Front Matter, Mysoon Rizk

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

The Date Of The Allegory Of Mercy At The Misericordia In Florence...Again: Some Clarifications Regarding The Historical Setting, William R. Levin

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Images Of Maps And Connotative Tendencies In Early Republican America, Kerr Houston

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

An Interview With Jennida Chase, Sunny Spillane, Jennida Chase

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

An Interview With Brianna Harlan, Mysoon Rizk, Brianna Harlan

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Suzanne Valadon: Model, Painter, Rebel; And Modigliani Up Close, K. A. Mcfadden

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Art Inquiries Vol Xviii No 4 2023 Full Issue, Mysoon Rizk

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Jacqueline Jung, Eloquent Bodies: Movement, Expression, And The Human Figure In Gothic Sculpture, Kerr Houston

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Diana S. Greenwald, Painting By Numbers: Data-Driven Histories Of Nineteenth-Century Art, Sara Woodbury

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Postindustrial Playbook++, Maxwell Fertik

Masters Theses

There is no such thing as an undisrupted ecosystem. Every inch of the planet is impacted by industrial development and its chemical legacy has mutated the soil and water. As a response, this thesis is designed to promote abundant over extractive resources and visualize a post-industrial reality. It consists of a series of objects, writing and design research on the relationship of industry and ecosystem.

In many ways it is a playbook++, laying out possible strategies or “plays’’ for making do with what exists around us amid collapse.

Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica)(ي'ڑ*), a plant that grows in the most degraded …

Making Then Meaning, Ben Denzer

Masters Theses

This is an artist talk contained within a book. It is 816 pages and 49 minutes long. Closed captions run across the spreads. A video of this talk can be watched on bendenzer.com/making-then-meaning

At RISD, I’ve been prompted to expand the scope and tools of my practice and to reflect on questions of meaning in my work.

I spend my days making things, but I’ve never really had good answers to questions of why I make the things I make, or what their meaning is. I don’t think there are simple answers to these questions.

I think meaning comes from …

Both Human And Holy: A Veneration Of Personhood Through Mythic Means, Abigail Porter

MFA in Visual Arts Theses

Mythology acts as a reflection of humanity, a connection of personhood and storytelling that spans through history. This essay covers how the ideas of myth, personhood, archetype, and portraiture remain central to my work. The nature of mythology is innately human in all aspects, centering on ideas being both fictitious and truthful - which allows the ideas of the dualistic aspects between the personhood and mythos with the figures worked with. My work is about people; I elevate the figure into mythic while using those myths to discuss the aspects of identity. My work leans heavily upon my own fixation …

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. …

The Landscape Does Not Care It Is A Landscape: A Utopian Pessimist Journey In Kentucky., Shachaf Polakow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

These thesis and exhibition, invite the viewers to travel through different places in Central and Eastern Kentucky. The region’s landscape, like many other American landscapes, is often known to the public through the settler colonial lens—a lens that ignores Indigenous peoples’ history in the region. The work in the exhibition is a response to landscape art's history and its complicity with American settler colonialism- art that was recruited to create a new identity for the settlers and for the country from the beginning of the American Colonial Project. Landscape art was a crucial part of this effort, presenting the land …

(Un)Orthodox Orient, Su Ergeneli

MA Projects

The term Orient was born from a Western-created body of knowledge, or rather discourse, with the authority of the West over the East. This paper, through historical and political analysis of the Orient, questions the reasoning and accuracy of the institutionalized Western knowledge of classical cultural archetypes of the East. Orientalism is a product of the West discovering the Orient and dominating and restructuring the Orient. Hence, it is represented by the dominating
frameworks. By taking the Orient out of the ideological discourse, this paper emphasizes Orient as an individual and evaluates the Near Eastern art market’s transformation as its …

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 …

On Curation: A Hermeneutical Approach, Elisabeth Yumin Kröber

MA Theses

Starting point of this paper is the philosophical field of hermeneutics.
/="/">Hermeneutics was established to account for different conditions of understanding
/="/">and how they shape our interpretative processes. As different times constitute
/="/">different conditions, the goal of the discipline essentially is to bridge the temporal
/="/">gap between the creation of a work and its perception at a given point in time.
/="/">Whereas traditionally, understanding was a matter of analyzing the historical
/="/">tradition of author/artist and reader/viewer, nowadays, the perception and
/="/">interpretation of art is shaped by another instance, the curator. Under the premise …