This research identifies the negotiation of inherited understandings of the term ‘community’ as an increasingly widespread concern within the field of contemporary art since 1989, particularly in the wake of art’s communitarian turn during the 1990s. The thesis examines these artistic investigations in connection with the work of philosophers such as Maurice Blanchot, Roberto Esposito and Jean-Luc Nancy during the 1980s and 1990s, where we find the most thorough interrogation of the term ‘community’ since the nineteenth century. Contending that art has significantly contributed to a discourse long established in philosophy, the thesis reflects on what precipitated the widespread shift from an artistic interest in ‘this or that community’ to ‘community as such’ during the 1990s, and on what art has offered to the negotiation of community that philosophy has not. These dual concerns have been developed in the two sections that comprise the thesis, entitled ‘Untying the “Unique Epochal Knot”’ and ‘Collaboration, Participation, Performance and the Negotiation of Community’. An important issue the thesis broaches is whether art can (despite concerns about its co-optation within neoliberal institutions) constitute a potent site for the negotiation of community. The affirmative, if critical, answer given considers the unorthodox forms, logics and strategies that art is permitted to employ, art’s ability to enact material interventions into social relations and, overall, art’s operation as an alternative/complementary mode of articulation to that offered by philosophy. Through the analysis of pertinent case studies, the thesis examines how collaborative, participatory and performance practices have been particularly employed by artists including Tania Bruguera, Kristina Norman and Artur Żmijewski, seeking to scrutinise factors crucial to the rethinking of community. These factors include singularity, commonality, temporality and ethics. Springing from interviews, research trips to key case studies, and a thorough literature review, as well as implicating a range of work from diverse geographies and spread over the past two decades, the thesis situates the move towards the negotiation of community in art both historically and theoretically. In doing so, the analysis develops an important reconsideration of contemporary art’s widely noted attendance to the social. In privileging a conceptual framework for the discussion of this tendency in art, as opposed to the more prevalent formalist model, greater critical purchase may be gained on this urgent development in contemporary art history.

Au début du vingtième siècle, une rupture radicale et fondatrice de modernité artistique eut lieu au Brésil. Cette modernité se démarque de celle d’Europe par la prise de conscience des distances géographiques, culturelles et politiques vis à vis de l’Europe et surtout de l’ancienne puissance coloniale, le Portugal, par la recherche de son identité à travers la multiplicité des métissages du Nouveau Monde, ses mythes et son histoire réelle décolonisée. L’avant-garde brésilienne émerge autour de 1928, à travers les Manifestes anthropophages d’Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954) qui est donc le fondateur des anthropophagies, que l’on peut définir comme un indianisme à rebours. Le ″mauvais sauvage″ exerce sa critique contre les impostures du monde. « La ″Descente anthropophagique″ n’est pas une révolution littéraire, ni sociale, ni politique, ni religieuse. Elle est tout cela à la fois ! Sa loi est simple : Ne m’intéresse que ce qui n’est pas à moi ! Loi de l’homme, loi de l’anthropophagie ! » . Elle prescrit donc la dévoration des modèles importés et leur digestion dans l’hybridation au nom de l’identité brésilienne, par déplacement de concepts freudiens : « L’anthropophagie c’est la transformation permanente du Tabou (manger de l’homme) en Totem (de l’identité brésilienne) ! » . Ici l’influence notable de la psychanalyse et de l’anthropologie est à resituer : le déplacement du tabou anthropophage demeure une transgression symbolique, une métaphore, mais la référence anthropophagique ne concerne pas que la période précolombienne, car elle se réactualise. Nous nous proposons d’étudier ce phénomène à travers quatre questions : 1°- Quelles relations existent entre l’anthropophagie, l’histoire, l’esthétique et l’idéologie ? 2°- Quelle est la place des femmes artistes brésiliennes dans l’émergence de ce mouvement, compte tenu de leur présence décisive dès l’origine ?3°- Compte tenu de la résurgence rhizomique de l’anthropophagie dans la 2e moitié du XXe siècle, y compris jusqu’à aujourd’hui, quelle est la place des femmes artistes dans ce phénomène ? Y a-t-il continuité avec l’époque fondatrice ?4°- Etant donné ce qui précède, peut-on déduire qu’il existe un courant spécifiquement féminin dans l’anthropophagie d’hier et d’aujourd’hui ? Quelle est son importance réelle ? Quelles sont ses relations et postures par rapport à la postmodernité et à la mondialisation de l’art contemporain ? / At the beginning of the twentieth century, in Brazil, a radical artistic rupture took place, which marked the beginning of a new era. The resulting modernity differed from its European counterpart by the awareness of geographical, cultural and political distances that alienated Brazil from Europe and more specifically from its former colonial owner, Portugal. Brazilian modernity sought to define its identity through important basic elements that constitute the stuff that the New World is made of: cross-breeding, mythology and post-colonialism. The Brazilian avant-garde emerged around 1928 with the publication of The Anthropophagy Manifesto by Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954), who is thus the founder of the Anthropophagy, that we can define as a backward step into a reinvented form of ″Amerindianness″. The ″bad savage″ voices his criticism against impostures of the world. « Anthropophagy art is not a literary revolution, nor is it a social plea, nor a political pamphlet, nor a religious tract. It is all these things at the same time. Its law is simple: everything that is not me is of interest to me. The law of men is the law of Anthropophagy ». It thus prescribes eating up imported models and digesting them through the process of hybridization in the name of Brazilian identity. By displacing Freudian concepts, «Anthropophagy is the permanent transformation of the Taboo (man-eating) into a Totem (Brazilian identity) ». The permeating influences of psychoanalysis and anthropology need to be put in perspective: the displacement of the anthropophagous taboo remains a symbolic act of transgression, a metaphor, but the anthropophagic reference does not concern the pre-Columbian period, because it is updated. We propose to study this phenomenon through four questions: 1°- What are the relations between Anthropophagy, history, esthetics and ideology? 2°- What is the place of women Brazilian artists in the emergence of this movement, taking into account their decisive presence right from the start? 3°- Taking into account the resurgence of Anthropophagy from the second half of the 20th century onwards, what is the place of women artists in this phenomenon? Are they pursuing the same interests as the founders of the movement?4°- Can we deduce that there exists a specifically female genre within the anthropophagic movement of yesterday and of today? If so, what is its relevance? Where does it stand with respect to the contemporary concepts of post-modernity and globalization in the present-day art world?

Cette thèse s’attache à mettre à jour les mécanismes de représentation et de réappropriation de l’intérieur domestiqueau sein des installations depuis les années 1950.Il s’agit de s’interroger quant aux raisons et significations de la présence de motifs hérités du XIXe siècle (nivellement social, distinction entre espace domestique et public, mise-en-scène de soi, accumulation de biens, valorisation de l’ornementation... ), au sein de pratiques contemporaines. Plus loin, on cherche à établir une typologie de personae archétypales au sein des oeuvres contemporaines. Témoin de l’émergence de l’intérieur autant que de la normalisation des conventions sociales, le XIXe siècle est également le creuset des avants-gardes artistiques autant que des révolutions – politiques, industrielles, sociales. Pourtant, c’est vers la figure conservatrice du bourgeois et d’un espace très réglementé que se tournent les artistes lorsqu’ils choisissent de se réapproprier l’intérieur domestique. Dès lors, existe-t-il des changements structurels ou des modulations dans la représentation des intérieurs depuis le XIXe siècle ? Le cas échéant, les formes adoptées par ces oeuvres sont elles issues des mêmes sources que lors de la naissance du genre ?À travers un ensemble d’exemples empruntés au champ de la création contemporaine, mais également à ceux des pratiques curatoriales et muséographiques, de la sociologie, de la littérature ou de la micro-histoire, il s’agit de dresser des pistes de réflexion quant aux enjeux soulignés par ces réalisations, afin d’en présenter les variations et ce qu’elles induisent, hors d’un compte rendu exhaustif. La pratique plastique est partie liée du sujet de recherche, l’anecdote y est érigée en guide en ce qu’elle offre une liberté d’accès sans précédent aux faits historiques, transformations sociales, mécanismes de domination ou productions culturelles. C’est à son émergence au sein de l’intérieur par le décoratif que cet objet est afférent au sujet de recherche. / This dissertation intends to unveil the mecanisms of representation and influence on the domestic interior in installations from the 1950s onwards.It is about questioning reasons and meanings of the presence of 19th century patterns ( social levelling, distinction between domestic and public space, hoarding, promotion of the ornementation...) in contemporary practices. Furtheron, the dissertation tries to establish a typology of archetypal personae in contemporary works.19th century is not only the testimony of the rise of the interior and the standardization of social conventions but also aspring of artistic avant-gardes as well as political, industrial and social revolutions. However, when artists deal withdomestic interior they would rather refer to the conservative figure of the bourgeois and a regulated space. Consequently,has there been structural changes or modulations in the representation of interiors since the 19th century ? If so, do the forms used by these works have the same foundation as when the genre was created ?Through examples drawn from contemporary creation but also from curatorial and museographic practices, sociology, litterature or microhistory, we intend to find approaches in link with the issues raised by these works in order to present their variations and what they imply. A complete report is not intended in this dissertation.The visual art practice is directly related to the research topic. Anecdote is used as a lead because it offers an unprecedented access to historical facts, social changes, mechanisms of domination or cultural productions. It is thanks to its appearence in the interior through the decorative that this object is linked to the research topic.

In this thesis, I will examine the difficulties of documenting ephemeral art and the possible solutions that archivists, curators, artists and other museum professions have come up with. I will begin by presenting a background of the history of performance art, which was the impetus for all ephemeral art to come. Then I will present case studies of three artists: Allan Kaprow, Eva Hesse, and Richard Tuttle, and their archival processes, all of which provide very different approaches to similar artistic problems. Finally, I will discuss the implications of re-performance and re-creation of ephemeral artworks.

Talking about spirituality can be uncomfortable. The topic is especially precarious within the sphere of education. Despite the discomfort and precarity, many scholars argue that there may be room in the postmodern curriculum for safe, open, and generative dialogue about religion and spirituality as cultural phenomena. These curriculum theorists (see Slattery, 2013; Doll, 2002; Huebner, 1991; Noddings, 2005; Whitehead, 1967a/1929; Wang, 2002) propose a sensitive critique of spirituality and religion that can lead to cultural healing, re-membering, re-integration and re-collection (Huebner, 1991). In an increasingly fractured world (Slattery, 2013), where spiritual and religious underpinnings cause an array of conflict, this study works toward critical dialogue in a secondary level public school art classroom. Through art-making, writing, and class discussions, the teacher and student researchers explored, critiqued, and de/constructed their own spirituality—with the aim of aggregating, accommodating (Rolling, 2011) and appreciating ways of thinking, being, and practicing that were different from their own. The project adopted A/r/tography as a qualitative research methodology, which views art-making, writing, and conversations as generative pools of data that can produce new understandings, meanings, and potentialities (Irwin et al., 2006; Irwin & de Cosson, 2004; Irwin & Springgay, 2008).

The aim of my work is to investigate the conditions of contemporary art and self-colonising tendencies in the production, perception and circulation of art between the online and offline space as well as the theoretical, contextual and political background of this process. The self-promotional character of mediating my own artwork over the internet is given by the widely used technology options, the preset architecture of web content for distribution of visual content, as well as the dominant aesthetic canon of documentary artwork and exhibitions dictated by influential visual blogs from the Contemporary Art Daily to the Ofluxo , Tzvetnik or others. I recognize the artistic practice in this context as an aesthetic loop and the accelerative impotence of a digital image given by the political conditions of information technology. The practical output of the work will consist of two textile objects.Design of objects and the DIY part of it will be created by me, but the objects stiching will be realized by Slovak designer / model Michal Šumichrast, who creates his own branding under the name SUMICRAFT. I think that the aesthetics and the process of producing his work and life itself corresponds to the social policy of the new global class of cultural producers. His artistic practice is contextually similar to my practice and to the social / political economic issues of the current precariat class that I examine in my theoretical and practical work. As a final result of the research the objects will be documented in "high resolution" and sent back to the Internet. Either in the form of an Instagram post, or as a self-colonising process within some of the "most up-to-date" online platforms for contemporary art.

Le banal objet manufacturé a pris une place de plus en plus importante sur la scène artistique depuis son irruption, via le geste de Marcel Duchamp en 1913. De 1913 à aujourd’hui, cet objet pose problème : 1/car il est à la fois objet quotidien et objet d’art ; 2/ car exposé, il est soumis à un dispositif communicationnel qui tout à la fois en montre le sens et en génère ; 3/ car plus l’objet se réduit plus le discours tissé autour est important. Le sens qu’il revêt au long du siècle change et une évolution se dessine : plus l’objet tend à s’abstraire, à se numériser plus il va revenir sous la forme du discours et de la communication nous donnant à voir quelque chose d’irréductible, ce que l’homme dépose en lui de fondamentalement humain. Envisagé sous les angles esthétique, anthropologique et institutionnel, l’objet, apparemment simple, nous montre son indéniable complexité. Il est fonctionnel, utile, décoratif parfois, objet d’art plus rarement et en lui se fixe quelque chose du sujet qui l’utilise, le regarde, le crée. L’objet, comme paradigme de la communication humaine, suit, induit, en tout cas entérine les progrès et les régressions de la société. Et l’objet d’art, dans les dispositifs d’exposition de plus en plus prégnants, interactifs et sophistiqués, est un révélateur essentiel pour une meilleure saisie du présent. / The mundane and manufactured object has taken an increasing place on the artistic scene since its irruption, by the act of Marcel Duchamp in 1913. From 1913 to nowadays, this object is problematic: 1/ because it is both an everyday thing and a piece of art; 2/ because, when it is exhibited, it is submitted to a device of communication which simultaneously reveals and creates the meaning; 3/ because more the object is reducing itself, more the discourse about it is important.Throughout this century, the meaning of the object has changed and an evolution is discernable: more the object is abstracting or digitizing itself, more it exists by the discourse and the communication. This gives us to see an irreducible thing, a fundamentally human leftover.Analysed by aesthetic, anthropologic and institutional perspectives, the object, apparently simple, reveals its clear complexity. It is functional, useful, sometimes decorative, and more rarely a piece of art; and something of the subject, who uses, peers, creates its, sets in itself. The object, as a paradigm of the human communication, follows, induces, endorses at any rate progresses and regressions of society. In increasingly significant, interactive and sophisticated exhibitions’ devices, the piece of art is an essential indicator for a best understanding of the present time.

The thesis named The Trends in Exhibiting Contemporary Art in Prague galleries deals with the topic of displaying and mediating contemporary art in the galleries and exhibitions. The thesis focuses on the elements of the complex issue and the particular exhibitions held in Prague from 2007 to 2011. Each element is covered in one dedicated chapter - the artwork, the viewer, the curator and the gallery. The chapter about the artwork summarizes the evolution of this term in the 20th century. The chapter about the viewer pursues the biological aspects of the process of seeing and perception and the relationship between the viewer and the image. The chapter about the work of the curator of the contemporary art focuses on the evolution of their part in the galleries' working process from the figure of Harald Szeemann to the term The Crisis of Curator. The gallery is introduced as a three- dimensional term: as a space for exhibitions, an institution and a mediating scope. The examples included in each chapter are derived from the Prague galleries and exhibition spaces and so the thesis also deals with the topic of Prague gallery scene. The final chapter is constituted of ten exhibitions that were held in Prague from 2007 to 2011 and are in my opinion the most important and significant ones for that...

There is currently need for reform in art programs of all kinds, in regards to use of and focus on contemporary art and current practices. Teaching about art of our time and place enables students to understand and make connections to their world, and facilitates art making that is creative and relevant. This thesis describes theory and rationale for basing curriculum on contemporary art practices and presents a jewelry workshop, for all skill levels, that teaches contemporary art themes and practices. There are two units. The first teaches metal texturing, shaping and simple soldering skills while, focusing on art that deals with spectral and compensatory remembering themes. The second unit teaches bezel setting while focusing on alternative to the establishment art themes. The lessons in the workshop were also created using contemporary art teaching techniques and new principles and elements of design.

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