Globalization and the advancement of technology have made the world smaller. Boundaries that define nations and nationalities have blurred and the resulting sense of displacement has undermined assumptions of identity and conversely made the search for identity more urgent. This thesis investigates the dialogue between the contemporary arts and architecture through the lens of the Filipino culture as a way to recapture and bring to the surface the contemporary identity of Filipinos and the Philippines. It proposes an understanding of history, geography and culture as a complex floating archipelago out of which our identity as individuals and nations emerge. It suggests that the events of history and the characteristics of geography are the grounds out of which art, myths and legends continue to be formed and sustain their relevance. Today, these compelling narratives emerge through the works of contemporary artists. They help us view and understand our flaws, struggles, triumphs, and future as a society in a way that speaks of our culture and time. Architecture, as a container and stage for culture must be sensitive to this artistic contemporaneity if it is to be indexical to our time. The Philippines, as a culture of hybrid and regional identities, has long struggled to make sense of the Contemporary in a largely Traditional society. The thesis proposes a new Centre for Contemporary Arts in Manila to bring the diverse artistic activities of the country into focus. It intervenes at interface between the Traditional and the Contemporary, which bridges the gap between the two, thus heralding a Cultural Renaissance and help generate a sense of contemporary nationalism.

An exploration of the mythologized narratives that the work and lives of Conceptual artists Bas Jan Ader, Ana Mendieta, and Francis Alÿs have created and inspired. By virtue of their biographies, the fetishization of their personalities, and the ways in which this anecdotal information can be read in their work, mythologized narratives have been constructed, allowing for a prolonged interest existing within and without the confines of the art world. These mythologies come together as part of the oral tradition of the art world, a chronicling of narratives that incites continued interest for future generations.

<p>For more than three decades the Moscow-based conceptual artist group "Collective Actions" has been organizing actions. Each action, typically taking place at the outskirts of Moscow, is regarded as a trigger for a series of intellectual activities, such as analysis, interpretation, narration, and description. The artists have systematically recorded and transcribed these activities, collecting and assembling texts, diagrams, and photographs in a ten-volume publication entitled "Journeys Outside the City." Five volumes of this publication concern the activities of the group before, and five after, 1989. Over the years the "Journeys Outside the City" became an idiosyncratic, self-sufficient aesthetic discourse arrayed along a constellation of concepts developed by those engaged in "Collective Actions." In its elusive hermeticism and self-referentiality the aesthetic framework constructed by these artists formed a closed system, gathering bundles of signs that seldom referred to anything concrete outside the horizon of Moscow Conceptualism. It is in this regard that the early volumes of the "Journeys Outside the City" can be compared to the similarly closed ideological discourse of the Soviet Politburo. After 1989, however, with the transition from socialism to capitalism, the aesthetic and artistic language of this group began to change as its text-based self-sufficient system began to open up under pressure from new socioeconomic conditions introduced by the processes of democratization and liberalization. </p><p> My dissertation "Transition in Post-Soviet Art: `Collective Actions' Before and After 1989" is neither a history of nor a monographical work on "Collective Actions," but rather an analytical exploration of aesthetic, artistic and institutional changes that have transpired in the "Journeys Outside the City" during the transition from socialism to capitalism. As the artists migrated from one art historical category into another (from the status of "unofficial artists" to that of "contemporary artists"), their aesthetics and art revealed a series of stylistic, technical, formal, textual, and aesthetical transformations and metamorphoses that paralleled broader cultural conversions taking place in post-Soviet and Eastern European art during the transition to capitalism.</p> / Dissertation

Internship experiences in art museums can help students to compare the theories they have learned in school and the tasks in the real working place. Since the researcher is the supervisor of the interns in Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA), an appropriate internship program should be developed. Therefore, the purposes of this these are to discuss the art museums, interns and school¡¦s attitude toward internship program; to examine the internship program in MOCA; and to provide suggestions to improve internship programs. To achieve these goals, the research conducts a thorough literature review, case interviews and participant observation. MOCA and the other three public art museums are taken as examples to analyze and compare their internship programs. The opinions of MOCA¡¦s interns and the schools¡¦ teachers which cooperated with MOCA are collected. The results show that an internship program has several functions such as education, professional training, museum promotion, and interns can be part of the human resources in art museums. Though art museums provide internship programs to students and schools, they should also plan the programs according to their own characteristics and make the programs flexible to accommodate different situations. As for MOCA, it should strengthen the management of internship, let interns know their assignments and tasks precisely, and keep well communication with students. The thesis raises the following suggestions on internship: 1. Art museums should prepare internship programs to benefit both interns and museums, such as increase intern¡¦s training courses and find out specialties of interns. Furthermore, an internship database should be established in each museum as reference. 2. Interns should learn more about the museums in advance. They should have a positive attitude to learn, and evaluate their tasks and goals frequently during the internship. 3. School and museum should consider themselves as partners to arrange the internship placement properly.

La ricerca ha individuato come elemento specifico d'interesse la ricostruzione storico-critica delle relazioni artistiche tra Italia e Germania, nel periodo compreso tra il 1918 e il 1925, nel corso del quale sono stati riscontrati gli episodi più rilevanti e i momenti originanti di sviluppi significativi per gli artisti, i galleristi e gli intellettuali coinvolti in queste relazioni. La ricostruzione storica delle vicende espositive, bibliografiche, documentarie, che hanno costituito il tessuto attraverso il quale si sono sviluppati e intrecciati i percorsi dei due ambiti culturali, è stata arricchita dall'individuazione e dall'approfondimento di alcuni aspetti e tematiche che si sono riconosciuti come ricorrenti e fondanti il dialogo artistico tra Italia e Germania nel corso del periodo preso in esame. Il primo capitolo si concentra sul quadro di riferimento storico-critico e sulle figure di mediatori che ne hanno permesso gli scambi, mentre il secondo sull'ambito delle relazioni tra Valori Plastici e la Germania. Il terzo capitolo ricostruisce le vicende di alcuni artisti tedeschi che nel periodo in questione soggiornano in Italia (Georg Schrimpf, Carlo Mense, Alexander Kanoldt, Christian Schad). L'ultimo capitolo accenna invece ad alcune ipotesi di analisi comparativa, che testimoniano del comune terreno di ricerca. / This research has been considering as a specific element of interest the historical-critical reconstruction of the artistic relationships between Italy and Germany in the period 1918-1925. During these years, it has recognized the most relevant episodes and the originating moments for meaningful developments in the following decades, for artists, galleries, intellectuals involved in these relationships. The historical reconstruction of exhibitions, publications, documents, which determined the environment for the courses of the two cultural surroundings to develop and intertwine, has been enriched by the identification and study of some aspects and themes recognized as recurring and founding for the artistic dialogue between Italy and Germany in the analyzed period. The first chapter focuses on the historical-critical frame of reference and on the figures of mediators who allowed these exchanges, while the second concentrates on the relationships between Valori Plastici and Germany. The third chapter reconstructs the Italian stays of some German artist who reside in Italy during this period (Georg Schrimpf, Carlo Mense, Alexander Kanoldt, Christian Schad). The last chapter proposes some hypotheses for comparative analysis, that testify the common ground of research.

Rezeption und Produktion sind im Medium Buch seit jeher eng miteinander verbunden. Nicht nur die Texte in einem Buch gelten als zitierfähig, sondern jedes seiner Elemente, wie die Abbildungen, die Typografie, sogar das Material eines Buches. Um selbst auch „zu produzieren“, sind dafür natürlich Orte wichtig, an denen man auf das bereits Produzierte Zugriff hat: zum Beispiel Bibliotheken.

My master's thesis explores the photographic series "This Land is Mime Land," which Shelley Niro made in 1992. Despite this work's complex form and structure, there are currently no sustained studies of this series alone, or books solely dedicated to Niro's art. Instead, "Mime Land" is often discussed in compilations that address a number of Native artists, Western feminist practices, or multiple works in Niro's oeuvre. My thesis fills this gap, as I closely investigate how "Mime Land" asks the viewer to look at visual culture, histories and Niro herself. Bell hooks's definition of the "oppositional gaze" - meaning a way of looking that challenges the conventions of visual culture by implementing the media's tools (film and photography) to construct new images of self - provides the framework for my analysis. Specifically, I contend that the subject, form and structure of "Mime Land" critically intervene in mainstream visual culture by asking the viewer to look at Native American women's identities, cultures and histories in new ways; ways that disavow the conventions of dominant visual representations and return the power over one's image to Niro, her family and community. My study demonstrates this thesis through a close consideration of the context contemporary to the work's production; a detailed examination of the photographs in the series; and an analysis of the work's overall structure.

From 1972 until 1989, the artist trio General Idea produced FILE Megazine. The first eight issues of FILE, published from 1972 – 1975, are the focus of this thesis. They stand apart from the later issues because their covers hijacked the look and iconic logo of Life magazine. The red rectangle with white block letters attracted the attention of Time Inc. and resulted in a lawsuit. Rather than fight the corporate giant, General Idea changed their logo after the autumn 1975 issue. FILE, like many artists’ magazines, is typically discussed in idealistic language that privileges the subversive or democratic intentions of the publication while neglecting its significance as a device for the promotion of community and collaboration. I argue that General Idea envisioned FILE as a utopian project intended to produce the world they sought to live in. Authors frequently employ FILE as a tool to discuss General Idea’s work, focusing on it as a mirror or archive of a larger project and emphasizing FILE’s humorous, bawdy, and irreverent aspects. In this thesis, I situate FILE in terms of its historical, art historical, and theoretical frameworks. I pay particular attention to General Idea’s early involvement in the mail art network, FILE’s relationship to 1960s and 1970s artists’ magazines and magazine art, the contemporaneous social and political climate in Canada, and General Idea’s investigation and employment of theoretical frameworks culled from Marshall McLuhan’s text The Medium is the Message and Roland Barthes’ book Mythologies. / text

In 2009, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) brought together teens and educators from exemplary museum teen programs for an unprecedented event, the National Convening for Teens in the Arts (NCTA). Prior to the Convening the ICA Teen Arts Council engaged participants in four weeks of discussions hosted on an online conversation platform. Since the 2009 event, the museum has continued to engage participants in online conversations prior to the Convening. This study examines the role of technology in the teens' experience at the 2011 National Convening for Teens in the Arts through a synthesis of interviews conducted with key educators associated with the Convening and ICA, observations, and document analysis. This research additionally examines how technology impacted the Convening as a whole. The following shows how the online conversations sparked conference dialogues and enabled the teen-driven and teen-focus environment present throughout the Convening. Also, the online conversations helped to develop a community amongst conference participants, educators and teens alike. / text

As an interdisciplinary project that integrates African and African American Studies, critical race theory, and Art History, this dissertation attempts to enrich our understanding of the politics of difference in contemporary art by interrogating the formal practices of artists and the social significance of their work. The artwork discussed reflects a pattern of creative engagement with archival institutions and documents that is characteristic of contemporary artists who are concerned with questions of consumption and the body; representation and erasure; the social construction of race and space; and the relationship between history, memory, and identity. Taken together, these themes constitute a discursive landscape within contemporary art that is central to the principle question raised here—namely, how do social genres of difference and relations of power influence artistic practices of representation, curatorial display, and reception? In an attempt to both answer and reverse the direction of this question, this text presents insightful perspectives from different artists on the complex relationship between art and society. Using the politics of difference as a lens through which to examine the aforementioned themes in contemporary art, I argue that the artists under consideration are transforming the meaning of race in post-slavery societies throughout the black diaspora. Through various creative practices, these artists are shifting the terms, coordinates, and representations of difference seen in the archive in order to reimagine the language of identity in the twenty-first century. Fundamentally, their work challenges the way certain bodies are recognized—compelling us, as viewers, to reinterpret the past from alternative and critical perspectives. Moreover, by focusing on the disclosure of a black presence in western cultures through the comparative formal and historical analysis of contemporary works of art that call our attention to misrepresentation, commodification, invisibility, and displacement, this dissertation contributes to developing conversations about how contemporary artists challenge dominant narratives and representational aesthetics. Through their work, these artists expand our conception of the archive—disclosing the overlapping ways in which objects, images, words, signs, ideas, ads, bodies, and spaces register social and historical meaning through the demarcation of racialized difference. Ultimately, this project demonstrates how art can transform the way we see and represent ideas of difference, and therein, the way we see and represent ourselves. / African and African American Studies