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Appropriation in Postmodernism: Analyzing Andy Warhol and Sherrie Levine
No full textThesis (B.A. in Art History, Minor in Enrepreneurship)--John Cabot University, Fall 2018.The 20th century is a historical period dominated by events that eventually drastically changed the path of history and the world itself. Considered as the “brief century”, it is characterized by its fast changes due to technological innovations and the evolution on political-economical assets1. If cultural products have always been strongly influenced by the historical environment in which they develop, art, in the 20th century, was particularly influenced by the new political systems and social changes which ended up giving birth to a large amount of movements and styles. Generally, the century can be split into two major cultural tendencies, even if they each involved several different styles: modernism (indicating the first half of the 20th century), and postmodernism (beginning from the second half). The former was particularly enthusiast of the industrial development focusing on the research of new imagery, materials, and technique which could create artworks reflecting the new hope of modern society. Postmodernism, instead, developed as reaction to Modernism. The artworks reflect a new skeptic vision of the world about the previously praised universal truths and objective reality3. This artistic approach was particularly relevant for the large amount of works based on the phenomenon of Appropriation. Even though the act of appropriating pre-existing styles, images, techniques has always occurred in art history, the past century stressed this tendency further so that the concept of originality and authenticity of the work of art has been strongly threatened.
In this thesis, I will explore the meaning and phenomenon of Appropriation. I will analyze how it acted out during 20th century art, focusing on its postmodernist tendency, and how it radically changed the concept of originality and authorship. Through the analysis of two artists, the thesis will clarify the two major fields in which Appropriation stands: how Appropriation art defines the act of translating into artworks images coming from the everyday life and culture, and how it uses the reproduction of an existing work of art which is be modified or not in order to confer a totally new contemporary meaning.
Andy Warhol and Sherrie Levine are among the symbols of the appropriative impulse. Studying their works will allow to identify how Appropriation is possible to understand, and why this problematic issue has actually gained great importance in art history. I will also explore the theme of authenticity, questioning the idea of aura. In other words: if these contemporary works are inspired by the mass media culture of the present, or quote masterpieces and styles of the past how has their “aura” and value changed? Through a historical and visual study of these artists, the phenomenon of the issue of authenticity will finally be investigated. The main aim of the thesis is answering to three research questions:
- what Appropriation actually means, and how it applies to contemporary art;
- how Postmodernist artists exploited iconic images coming from their everyday, and their final aim;
- how Postmodernist artists interpreted past and contemporary works and their final aim;
- how scholars and critics interpreted this common tendency in contemporary art
Nocturnal Rhythms and Collective Practices
No full textChoreographies of assembly are grounded in the relationship between urban design and collective, bodily modes of reproducing, inhabiting, and reimagining urban space. Through a case study of urban regeneration, culture-led development, and social movements in Montreal, this article examines the particular nocturnal spatio-temporal rhythms of gathering in public space. For a long time, the night was left in the shadows by urban development experts who focus their attention on daytime plans and activities. However, following the rise of nighttime economies, sleepless societies, and ‘24/7’ cities, the night has received increasing attention since the 1990s (Crary; Gwiazdzinski and Straw). Critical engagements with the night as an object of study have shed light upon temporality, rhythms, and links between space and time. Such perspectives rethink urban life in terms of rhythm. Drawing from Henri Lefebvre’s theory of “rhythmanalysis,” this article focuses on the aesthetic, bodily, and sensorial experiences of collective practices. This article takes up Lefebvre’s notion of polyrhythmia—the idea that the living body is an association of a multiplicity of rhythms—to study the polyrhythmic qualities of collective and bodily practices in urban space at night. This night-focused study draws out the complex relations between collectivity, movements, and urban design. Moreover, a rhythmic study of the city at night foregrounds the multimodal perception process, following James Gibson’s theory of ecological perception. Hence, this article asks: how does the night affect our collective experience of the city
Understanding Italian Maternity Decline 1995-2016: Insight into the Minds of Italian Women as Explanation for Governmental Failure
No full textThesis (B.A. in Italian Studies)--John Cabot University, Spring 2018.Il tasso di natalità in Italia ha incominciato ad abbassarsi negli anni 60 in maniera progressiva fino a ora, quando il tasso tenta di togliere sostentamento ai pensionati e di cambiare la demografia degli elettori, tra gli altri cambiamenti della popolazione non ancora aspettati. Il governo Italiano ha provato a sistemare la situazione con il programma di Bebè Bonus del 2003, che ha portato pagamenti e stipendi alle famiglie per ogni figlio partorito o adottato, e l’iniziativa di Fertility Day nel 2016, che ha voluto informare le donne italiane dei rischi di posticipazione della maternità. Niente due iniziative sono state ricevute bene e non c’è un aumento notabile nei dati del tasso. Questa ricerca vuole determinare quali fattori di pianificazione familiare sono più pertinenti e, dunque, meritano l’attenzione del governo nella capacità di welfare. L’analisi è fatta da una comprensione della letteratura esistente per sapere se gli autori sono confermati da un questionario originale che comporre delle opinioni di 53 donne italiane che vengono da tutto il paese. Il questionario voleva capire dalle donne perché il calo occorre e qual tipo di sostenimento incoraggerebbe loro ad avere figli in Italia. La ricerca scopre che l’instabilità del lavoro dipendente o stabile è una preoccupazione centrale per le donne Italiane e propone che servono programmi che estendono l’accessibilità di asili nido e che le aiuta a trovare lavoro in supporto dell’autonomia individuale
Texture and Materiality of the Roman Portrait
No full textThesis (B.A. in Art History, Minor in Communications)--John Cabot University, Fall 2018.Roman portraiture is among the most visually thrilling, not simply for the apparent directness ofviewer engagement, but also due to the evolving form and stylistic treatment, the staggeringtechnique skills, and the quantity of surviving examples. The strong link between image andindividual has meant that traditionally portraits have primarily been treated as articulating thestatus message of the one who was portrayed. Through an examination of different marbletechniques and innovations and through a variety of case studies in the rhetoric of forms andstyles, this thesis will focus on the impact of viewing and how the image is related to the processof viewing. The aim is for an awareness of portraits as dynamic intermediaries of socialinteraction. To this end, the thesis will look at the handling of the material as a link with visualtexture and engagement. In essence, the thesis concerns the materiality of portraiture more thanthe recognizability of portraits
Artemisia Gentileschi: her Bloody Portrayal of Betrayal and Overall Status
No full textThesis (B.A. in Art History, Minor in Communications)--John Cabot University, Spring 2018.Artemisia Gentileschi is recognized as an important painter working in the style of Caravaggiofrom the Baroque period. Her 20th century rediscovery has resulted in a large body of scholarshipand a number of important international exhibitions. A critical component of Artemisia’sscholarship takes feminist perspectives, though such perspectives have been challenged fromissues such as iconography and connoisseurship. This thesis reaffirms the necessity of a feministperspective in analyzing Artemisia’s work, particularly through a close examination to herFlorentine Judith Slaying Holofernes (1620). After an analysis of the recent historiography of theartist, the thesis analyzes Artemisia’s subject matter, her many heroines that have been seen asrepresenting a developed sense of feminist consciousness and intuition. Based on the artist’sintuitive portrayals, it is important to reiterate the role that certain biographical aspects of theartist’s life, training and patronage, had upon her work. Chapter 3 consists of an in-depthcomparison of Artemisia’s Judith to that by Caravaggio, studying specific naturalistic elements,and especially the representation of blood, to demonstrate Artemisia’s stylistic innovations, drawnfrom her particular gender position as well as from her contact with prominent intellectuals. Fromthis analysis, it becomes clear that Artemisia Gentileschi should be regarded independently of herfather’s work and that of other Caravaggisti painters, and that her feminist contribution to thehistory of painting be reaffirmed
Environment of the first solo exhibition of Wassily Kandisnky in Italy : exhibition in Galleria Il Milione in April 1934, Milan
No full textMaster of Arts in Art History -- John Cabot University, Fall 2018.This thesis focusses on Wassily Kandinsky’s first monographic exhibition in Italy, which was held at the Galleria Il Milione, Milan, in 1934. It begins by retracing the motivations and negotiations that preceded the exhibition, both on the side of the artist and on that of the gallery owners, the Ghiringhelli brothers. The Ghiringhellis, spurred on by the Rationalist architect Sartoris, were extremely keen on exhibiting Kandinsky, whom they considered to be one of the founders of abstract painting, and an important representative of the international avant-garde. The Ghiringhellis’ gallery played a crucial role in the diffusion of modernism in Milan and they were militant proponents of the social, cultural and artistic transformation they believed the new painting could bring about in the new Italy. Kandinsky was not particularly eager to promote his art in Milan or Italy generally, but as recent exile to Paris from Germany, which he had just left in 1933, and as a foreigner in Paris, he accepted the Ghiringhellis invitation. Grateful for the possibility of exhibiting in a politically conservative and artistically experimental milieu, Kandinsky sent forty-five watercolours from his Bauhaus period to Milan hoping, at the very least, to sell some of the works. The exhibition opened in April 1934. While it cannot be said to have been a commercial success, despite the gallerists’ projections, it was well-attended by the Milanese public. The critical reaction and reception that the exhibition prompted is a telling panorama of the situation in Milan in 1934, and a revealing case-study of the thorny question of the reception of a foreign avant-gardist two years after the hardening of the Fascist doctrine. Moreover, Kandinsky’s sympathetic views towards Fascism, a fact occulted by the historiography of the artist, and evinced by the unpublished primary sources pertaining to the exhibition, shed new light on the varieties of “reactionary modernism” that characterized many of the debates in the 1930s
The Formation of an Anglo-Saxon Kingdom Under Alfred the Great
Get PDFThesis (B.A. in Art History)--John Cabot University, Fall 2018.Viking invasions beginning in the late 8th century and continuing throughout the 9th century lead to the weakening and fall of all of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms except for the Kingdom of Wessex. This thesis seeks to explore the creation of a single Anglo-Saxon Kingdom through the development of a dominant Wessex political structure and the standardization of an Anglo-Saxon cultural identity under Alfred the Great in the late 9th century C.E. The way in which Alfred organized the defense of his kingdom contributed to the centralization of his administration politically and economically. Additionally, Alfred’s revival of learning and Christianity further consolidated his authority by ensuring the effectiveness of his administration and cultivating the support of the Church. Increased literacy rates and a revival of monasticism also created a literate audience base and production centers for his Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which served to justify Alfred’s reign while standardizing and spreading the concept of an Anglo-Saxon identity
The Inventory List, From Functional to Artistic: The Apartments of the Marchese Diomede Bourbon di Sorbello and Marchesa Vittoria Pitti Gaddi Bourbon di Sorbello
No full textMaster of Arts in Art History -- John Cabot University, Fall 2018.This thesis explores what motivated the Marchese Diomede Bourbon di Sorbello to write an ekphrastic inventory list of rooms in his palazzo in Perugia between 1794 and 1797. Evidence will be presented to argue for the literary value of the inventory in addition to being a document preserving the now-lost interior decoration of an eighteenth-century Italian palazzo containing both mobile and immobile objects and decorative arts. Common threads woven through the thesis are English translation excerpts positioned to offer comparisons and support the primary arguments of why the Marchese Diomede chose to write in this manner and demonstrate the inventory’s two-fold value as a literary and historical work of art. The prosopography of Diomede, including friendships with Vittorio Alfieri and François-Xavier Fabre, together with family history of collecting and the effects of the French Revolution are discussed as affecting both the manner and timing of the writing of the inventory list. A striking similarity between Diomede’s written descriptions and existence of floor plans, compared to the 1774 and 1786 editions of Mr. Horace Walpole’s description of his Villa at Strawberry-Hill are suggested as a possible model. The use of technical ekphrasis is illustrated by the use of movement and infinitive verbs to give the reader explicit instructions about how mechanical gadgets functioned and expressed opinions about how, when and where certain objects were to be used. The manner of writing descriptive sentences, creating a visual image with written words is what sets this inventory list apart from others in the family archive as well as from other published inventories at the same time in history. Translation of the twenty-three page original Italian document is included as an appendix A. Floor plans of the palazzo are present in Appendix B
Facebook and Issue Based Democratic Participation
No full textThesis (B.A. in Political Science)--John Cabot University, Fall 2018.Facebook boasts it has over 2.2 billion users. That means over a quarter of the world’s population is now on a single social platform. The effects of this sudden and mass exodus of humans from the real world into a digital sphere has proved to be turbulent to democracy, and it seems the way Facebook operates under its business model is in many ways is to blame. Facebook has recently found itself at the center of a debate regarding privacy and data. Ever since the Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal which came to light following the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, the business model which Facebook operates under has been under scrutiny. The company which has branded itself as a free platform for bringing the world together is in fact not all it makes itself out to be. Facebook is in fact exploiting its users for their data and selling it to their real customers- the advertisers. This model of operation has become detrimental to democracy as foreign actors, data mining companies and the politicians that employ them are using the platform to spread content aimed at influencing elections using highly targeted ads which feature highly contentious political and social issues. The purpose of this analysis is to shed light on how Facebook’s business model effects issue based democratic participation