Concise, critical reviews of books, exhibitions, and projects in all areas and periods of art history and visual studies

Contemporary Art
Dissertations in Progress by Subject, 2011

Show completed dissertations

Albu, Cristina, “Mirror Affect: Interpersonal Spectatorship in Installation Art since the 1960s” (Pittsburgh, T. Smith)

Aronowicz, Miriam, “The Triangle Arts Trust: Contemporary Art and Transnational Production” (Toronto, Elizabeth Harney)

Bailey, Robert, “Art and Language International: Rethinking the Politics of the Art World, 1969–1977” (Pittsburgh, T. Smith)

Bares, Eva, “Finding Place: Diaspora Experiences in Contemporary African Women’s Art” (Stony Brook University, B. Frank)

Becker, Natasha, “Local vs. Global: The Johannesburg Bienniales and the Production of Contemporary Art in a Post-Apartheid South Africa” (SUNY Binghamton, T. McDonough)

Bick, Tenley Catherine, “Capital and Rags: Michelangelo Pistoletto in Turin, 1958–1972” (UCLA, G. Baker)

Bristow, Jessica E., “Gordon Matta-Clark: Deconstruction, Destruction, Art, and Architectural Confluence” (Iowa, W. Tomasini)

Boone, Jobyl, “Christo and Jean-Claude in the United States, 1964–2005” (Delaware, A. Gibson)

Cappetta, Andrew, “Pop/Art: The Birth of Underground Music and the British Art School, 1960–1980” (CUNY, C. Bishop)

Chatalbash, Rachel, “Contemporary Art and Internationalism at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1952–1988” (CUNY, A. Chave)

Chisholm, Anna, “Fred Wilson’s ‘Un-Natural’ Histories: Race, Trauma, and the Visual Production of Knowledge” (Minnesota, J. Blocker)

Cho, Hyeok, “Can the Subaltern Artist Speak?: Postmodernity, Femininity, and Racial Identity in Lee Bul’s Art” (Binghamton University, J. Tagg)

Choi, Jong Chul, “Representing the Unrepresentable: The Ethics of Photography in Post-Documentary Practices” (Florida, J. Tsai)

Clark, Alexis, “The French Culture Wars: The Musée national du Luxembourg and the Conception of Contemporary Art, 1880–1914” (Duke, N. McWilliam)

Cohen, Brianne, “Contested Collectivities: Europe Reimagined by Contemporary Artists” (Pittsburgh, T. Smith)

Crain, Sarah, “The Aesthetics of Absence: Thomas Demand, Mariele Neudecker, and Gregor Schneider” (Georgia, I. Wallace)

DaPonte, Amy, “Critical Publicity: Candida Höfer’s Public Space Photographs, 1968 to Present” (Stanford, P. Lee)

Debin, Megan Lorraine, “Body Traces: Performance against Violence and Absence in Contemporary Mexico, 1994–2012” (UCLA, C. Villaseñor-Black)

Dees, Janet, “The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Performance Art as Art History” (Delaware, A. Gibson)

DeLand, Lauren, “Invisible Men: The Risks and Pleasures of Self-Portrayal in the Work of Contemporary American Male Artists” (Minnesota, J. Blocker)

Dickenson, Rachelle, “A Question of Sovereignty: Indigenous Art Education in Canadian Universities” (York University, R. Hill)

Dierkes, Anne-Louise, “Assemblage as Opposition: California’s Counterculture and the Struggle for US Cultural Definition” (CUNY, A. Chave)

Ditner, Judy, “War at a Distance: Conceptual Realism in Contemporary Art” (Boston, K. Sichel)

Dzenko, Corey, “Anxious Bodies: Affect and Identification in Contemporary US Photography” (University of New Mexico, C. Zuromskis)

Eckhardt, Sarah Louise, “Hedda Sterne and the Abstract Expressionist Context” (UIUC, J. Fineberg)

Erickson, Ruth, “Assembling Social Forms: Sociological Art Practice in Post-1968 France” (Pennsylvania, C. Poggi)

Evans, Emily Joyce, “The First Russian Art Exhibition, Berlin 1922: Display and Reception of the New Russia” (UIUC, T. Weissman)

Ewing, Margaret, “Unsettling the Politics of Reckoning: Hans Haacke in Germany” (UIUC, S. Hudson)

Ferber, Andrea, “Transhistoricity and Aestheticized Violence: Nancy Spero’s Works on Paper” (UIUC, S. Hudson)

Funk, Tiffany, “The Prosthetic Aesthetic: An Art of Anxious Extensions” (UIC, P. Hales)

Gaitan, Juan, “Act Without Image” (University of British Columbia, S. Guilbaut)

Galliera, Izabel, “Civil Societies, Social Capital, and Politicized Public Spheres: Socially Engaged Art and Exhibitions in a Post-1989 European Context” (Pittsburgh, T. Smith)

Gonzalez, Maria del Mar, “Proofing the Nation: Contested Displays of Identity at the San Juan Print Biennial, 1970–2009” (UIUC, O. Vazquez)

Guerrero, Marcela, “Creolizing Semiotics: Towards an Iconography of Contemporary Caribbean Art” (Wisconsin, Madison, J. Casid)

Handley, John, “Bodying-Forth Ultimate Concern: Human Existence, Transcendence, and Religious Dimensions in the Art of Stephen De Staebler” (Graduate Theological Union, M. Morris)

Harren, Natilee, “Objects Without Object: The Artwork in Flux, 1958–1969” (UCLA, G. Baker)

Heer, Sarita, “An Examination of Violence against Women in Indian Women Artists’ Works” (UIC, C. Becker)

Herrero Matoses, Fernando, “Antonio Saura: The Spanish Avant-Garde and the Monster” (UIUC, J. Fineberg)

Hollenberg, Sarah, “Art on Television, 1967–1974” (USC, R. Meyer)

Jans, Rachel, “Art on the Border: Galerie René Block in the 1960s and 70s West Berlin” (Chicago, C. Mehring)

Jardim de Santa Cruz Oliveira, Teresa Cristina, “Global Conceptualism and Cildo Meireles’ Cultural Critique” (UIUC, I. Small)

Jeanjean, Stéphanie, “Spectatorship and the Screen as Interface: French Art Using Television and the Projected Image from the Late 1960s to the Present Day” (CUNY, C. Bishop)

Kalinsky, Yelena, “Collective Actions: Moscow Conceptualism, Performance, and the Archive, 1976–1995” (Rutgers, J. Sharp)

Kart, Susan, “Moustapha Dimé and the Strategy of Récupération in Postcolonial Senegalese Sculpture” (Columbia, E. Hutchinson, B. Lawal)

Kerrigan, Katherine, “Cataloguing Critique: Experimental Forms of Documentation in American Art, 1970–1977” (USC, R. Meyer)

Kienle, Miriam, “Community at a Distance: The Networked Art of Ray Johnson” (UIUC, T. Weissman)

Kim, Joy Jeehye, “New Documents to Pictures: Lee Friedlander and the Re-Making of the Photographic Image, 1967–1989” (Yale, D. Joselit)

Klorman-Eraqi, Na’ama, “Feminism and Photography in 1970s–1980s Britain” (Binghamton University, J. Tagg)

Kovach, Jodi, “Remotely Mexican: Recent Work by Gabriel Orozco, Carlos Amorales, and Pedro Reyes” (Washington University, A. Miller)

Kuntz, Katrina, “The Art of Failure” (Stony Brook University, A. Uroskie)

Kuo, Michelle, “To Avoid the Waste of a Cultural Revolution: Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), 1966–1979” (Harvard, Y-A. Bois, B. Buchloh)

Kutis, Barbara, “Artist Parents: Nature, Nurture, and Identity in Contemporary Art” (Delaware, A. Gibson)

Lacis, Indra, “Marina Abramovic and Shirin Neshat: Collaboration, Performance, and the Executive Female Artist” (Case Western Reserve, E. Landau)

Larouche, Peggy, “Cinéphilie et Représentation du Corps: Le Cinéma de Guy Maddin” (Université de Montréal, O. Asselin, A. Gaudreault)

Lau, Charlene, “Taking a Stand: On the Role of Polemics and Neutrality in Contemporary Art Criticism” (York University, D. Adler)

Lawrence, Nora, “Dan Flavin’s Histories” (CUNY, A. Chave)

Lee, Anna, “Amateurs: Photography and the Aesthetics of Vulnerability” (Chicago, D. English)

Lee, Im Sue, “Alternative Art Spaces and Art in New York in the Early 1970s” (Florida, J. Tsai)

Lee, SooJin, “Born in Asia, Made in New York: Persona Art of International Star Artists” (UIC, H. Higgins)

Lin, Jenny, “Above Sea: Modern and Contemporary Art from the Ruins of Shanghai’s New Heaven on Earth” (UCLA, M. Kwon)

Lockard, Brittany, “Size Matters: Imagery of the Fat Female Body in the Art of Lucian Freud, Jenny Saville, Joel Peter Witkin, Laurie Toby Edison, Leonard Nimoy, and Laura Aguilar” (Kansas, D. Cateforis)

Lortie, Marie, “Afrique en Créations: French Patronage of Contemporary Art from Africa and the Diaspora, 1990–2011” (Toronto, E. Harney)

Louria-Hayon, Adi, “Folding Spaces and Porous Bodies: Sound and Space in Bruce Nauman” (Toronto, M. Cheetham)

Matuszak, Joanna, “Assertions of Identity: Russian Performance Art in the Aftermath of Perestroika” (Indiana, J. Kennedy)

Maydanchik, Michelle, “Creative Disruption: Performance Art in Post-Soviet Moscow” (Chicago, M. Jackson)

McCormick, A. Morgan, “The Myth of Multiculturalism: The Works of Roger Shimomura” (Florida State, L. Weingarden)

McKay, Sally, “Bodies in Thought: Neuroaesthetics and the Critical Practice of Art History” (York University, J. Fisher)

Mecugni, Anna, “A Voyage of Identities: Luigi Ontani and the Postmodern Question in 1970s Italy” (CUNY, R. Golan)

Myers, Cerise, “The Visible Posthuman: Envisioning Agency for the Cybernetic Self in Digital Culture” (Minnesota, J. Blocker)

Newman, Emily, “Weighing the Body: Female Body Image in Contemporary Art” (CUNY, A. Chave)

Oen, Karin, “Admonition and the Academy: Video, Installation, and Performance Art in Reform Era China, 1978–2008” (MIT, C. Jones)

Parke, Elizabeth, “Infrastructures of Critique: The Art and Visual Cultures of Contemporary Beijing” (Toronto, J. Purtle)

Powell, Amy L., “Time after Modernism: Postcoloniality in Contemporary Art” (Wisconsin, Madison, J. Casid)

Raabe, Vanessa, “After the End of History: Alternative Process Photography in Chile, 1990–2000” (UCLA, C. Villaseñor-Black)

Rosenbaum, Sarah, “In the Public Domain: Public Art, Advanced Capitalism, and
the Contemporary City” (Harvard, Y-A. Bois)

Rosenblum, Beth, “From ‘Special Period’ Aesthetics to Global Relevance in Cuban Art: Tania Bruguera, Carlos Garaicoa, and Los Carpinteros” (UCLA, D. Kunzle)

Rounthwaite, Adair, “Rearrangements: Politics and Pedagogy at the Dia Art Foundation, 1988–89” (Minnesota, J. Blocker, J. Marshall)

Routh, Mitali, “Ice Water Steam: Sculpture, Performance, and Moving Images, 1958–2003” (Duke, K. Stiles)

Ruff, Georgina, “Plugging in the Light: Late 20th-Century Immersive Light Installations” (UIC, H. Higgins)

Salas, Alexis, “Performing the Making: Uses of Public Spheres of Collaboration by Artists in Mexico City, 1987–2003” (UT Austin, A. Giunta)

Sanders, Sophie, “Synergy and Counterpoint: African-Derived Patterns in Contemporary Art” (Temple, G. Silk)

Schoenberger, Janna, “Ludic Conceptualism: Art and Play in the Netherlands from 1959–1975” (CUNY, R. Golan)

Shin, Chunghoon, “Art as Spatial Critique: South Korean Visual Arts since the Late 1960s” (Binghamton University, T. McDonough)

Simblist, Noah, “Psychogeographies of Occupation: Art and Politics at the Borderland” (UT Austin, A. Reynolds)

Smith, Ginger Elliott, “Practicing Big Science: Artists, Technology, and Institutions in 1960s and 1970s Southern California” (Boston, G. Williams)

Smucker, David, “Auto-Centric Photography and the Traveling Index” (Stony Brook University, A. Uroskie)

Smulevitz, Cara, “Listen While You Look: Third Wave Feminist Art and the Visual Legacy of Riot Grrrl” (UIC, H. Higgins)

Snoddy, Danielle M., “Charting the Emergence of Identity Narratives in Post-Apartheid South African Art: Protectionist Sensibilities, Internationalization, and the Johannesburg Biennales” (Iowa, C. Roy)

Solomon, Virginia, “Modeling Queer Methods: General Idea’s Art and Politics, 1969–1994” (USC, R. Meyer)

Stanek, Damon, “Seeing the Light: A History of the Projected Image in the Gallery, 1963–Present” (CUNY, C. Bishop)

Steinmann, Kate, “Biopower and the Administration of Affect in the Contemporary Photographic Serial” (University of British Columbia, J. O’Brian)

Taylor, Larry, “Art Verging on the Religious: Threads of the Spirit in Minimalism and Beyond” (Graduate Theological Union, M. Morris)

Thompson, Allison, “Arriving at the Caribbean: Constructing Visual Representations of
Transatlantic and Transcultural Experience” (Stony Brook University, B. Frank)

Triandos, Theodore, “A Social History of Postmodern Art and Its Criticism” (Delaware, A. Gibson, C. Holloway)

Tunali, Tijen, “Carnivals of Images, Festivals of Representation: On Contemporary Art and the Neo-Liberal World Order” (University of New Mexico, D. Craven)

Uchill, Rebecca, “From Atmospheres to Transactions: Art, Experience, and Alexander Dörner’s Audience, 1927–1960” (MIT, C. Jones)

Voorhies, James, “Falling from the Grip of Grace: The Exhibition as a Critical Form in Art since 1968” (Ohio State, A. Vinegar)

Voss, Annemarie, “Incremental Remedies: Contemporary Women Artists and Ecology, 1980–2000” (Rutgers, J. Marter)

Warbelow, Anna, “Camping the Canon: Artifice and Identity in Yasumasa Morimura’s Photographic Self Portraiture” (Washington University, A. Miller)

Wasserman, Andrew, “Contemporary Manhattan Cartographies: Ephemeral Public Art Projects in New York in the 1990s and 2000s” (Stony Brook University, M. Bogart)

Watson, Mark, “Diplomatic Aesthetics: Globalization and Contemporary Native American Art” (Columbia, E. Hutchinson)

Wei, Chu-Chiun, “Globalism and Identity in Taiwanese Contemporary Art, 1978–2009” (CUNY, A. Chave)

Weichbrodt, Elissa, “Through the Body: Corporeality, Subjectivity, and Empathy in Contemporary American Art” (Washington University, A. Miller)

Wells, Katharine, “Tapestry and Tableau: Historical Revival, Medium Specificity, and the Marketing of Modernism” (USC, N. Troy)

Werther-Rosenow, Barbara, “Communicative Strategies in Contemporary Video Art” (Rutgers, T. Flores)

Westerman, Jonah, “Standard Deviations: Reality, Reproducibility, and Politics in Performance Art since 1989” (CUNY, C. Bishop)

White, Marisa, “A Feminist Inheritance? Questions of Ambivalence and Subjectivity in Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley, and Robert Gober” (CUNY, A. Chave)

Woodruff, Lily, “Disordering the Establishment: Art, Display, and Participation in France, 1958–1981” (Northwestern, H. Feldman; Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, E. Michaud)

Wu, Cassie, “Perfect Objects: The Lives of Allan McCollum’s Works” (UCLA, G. Baker)

Yamamura, Midori, “Yayoi Kusama: Biography and Cultural Confrontation, 1945–1969” (CUNY, A. Chave)

Yi, Hyewon, “Photographer as Participant Observer: The Photographs of Larry Clark, Nan Goldin, Richard Billingham, and Nobuyoshi Araki” (CUNY, G. Batchen)

Young, Megan K, “After the Deluge: Contemporary Artists Engage Katrina” (Kansas, D. Cateforis)