Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2009. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

This dissertation significantly expands our knowledge of the biography and artistic contributions of Hughie Lee-Smith (1915–1999), an African American artist. I argue that between 1925 and 1968 Lee-Smith’s personal, educational, and professional experiences within the context of Jim Crow America and the Cold War era influenced the style and content of his figurative work and his opportunities for success. Throughout the dissertation, I examine his inspirations from art history and position his works alongside those of his contemporaries to show that his paintings are based on observations, artistic influences, and imagination. The dissertation’s four chapters are organized around Lee-Smith’s experiences of living during these decades in Cleveland, Detroit, and New York. Chapter one examines his early years (1925–1940) in Cleveland, Ohio, after he relocated from the South to join his mother. He learned to acquire the necessary skills in art, experienced enthusiastic civic and private philanthropic support, and developed a personal philosophy about the ability of art to build a better society. Chapter two moves to Detroit (1941–1950) and considers his commitment to family life, naval service, and further training in art. I examine his role in the radical labor movement and his naval service in nearby Chicago, along with his art activities to promote social change and racial equality. Focusing on the later Detroit years (1950–1958), Chapter three merges the social history of Jim Crow, Detroit’s urban renewal programs, anti-communist scares, and HUAC hearings with an analysis of the imagery of Lee-Smith’s urban and seaside paintings to indicate the psychological tensions he experienced. Chapter four analyzes the impact of his relocation to New York City (1958–1968), a successful transitional period of his life during which he was buoyed by the Civil Rights Movement and gained the recognition he had sought. The Epilogue considers Lee-Smith between 1968 and 1999. By interpreting Lee-Smith’s art within an intimate, extensive biography, we see his world shaped by America’s history of race, poverty, and disenfranchisement. When the parallel histories of America and African America are analyzed together, the meaning of America and American art becomes enlarged and enriched.

In the 1960s and 1970s, American artists Claire Zeisler, Ed Rossbach, and Sheila Hicks helped forge an international art movement that expanded the boundaries of fiber usage and, by extension, the boundaries of art itself. Often with only a loom, hook, or their own hands as tools, they crafted soft sculptures from thread, string, and rope. In contrast to recent formalist and feminist attempts to recover the overlooked genre of Fiber Art, this dissertation explores the ways in which artists employed fiber to register the ethnic and economic tensions of their era. Zeisler, Rossbach, and Hicks borrowed anthropological strategies to research the materials and processes associated with non-Western, Native American, and South American textile histories. Incorporating these principles into their own work, the artists in this project promote such art forms while simultaneously appropriating them as a ground for articulating their own responses to issues of industrialization and globalization. Chapter One contextualizes the dissertation’s three case studies by describing the Fiber Art movement, its contemporary reception, and its relationship to anthropology. Chapter Two highlights Chicagoan Claire Zeisler, who used her personal collection of African, Oceanic, and Native American art as source material for her thread-based sculptures. She therefore promoted diverse cultural traditions while also taking advantage of these art forms to establish her own artistic identity. Ed Rossbach, the subject of Chapter Three, studied international textile traditions as a teacher and theorist at the University of California, Berkeley. He repurposed ancient and foreign techniques using ephemeral, mass-produced materials, thereby challenging the romanticized distinction between the industrial present and preindustrial past. Finally, Chapter Four considers how Sheila Hicks engaged directly with fiber workshops in Mexico, Chile, India, Morocco, and France through travel and collaboration. By assimilating motifs and materials from these experiences into installations that were shown in corporate settings, her art alluded to the complex relationships between workers around the world. In their respective roles as collector, scholar, and traveler, these artists drew from anthropological discourses to provide critical perspective on United States society at a time when global communication and transportation technologies brought cultures into collision. / 2020-02-14T00:00:00Z

This Capstone Project encompasses two videos, each representing different ways to visually structure the experience of “the city”. The first video, "My Way or the Highway", is a 5 minute piece examining Los Angeles Transportation systems. Through observational footage and a poetic editing style, I compare and contrast the experience of traveling via public and private transportation. Through this video I aim to encourage the viewer to consider their own transportation options whether it is in Los Angeles or anywhere else around the world. The second is a 12 minute video, titled "A Correspondence" structured as a correspondence between Seattle and Los Angeles as if they were personified discussing what it means to be a developing/growing city and the responsibilities it entails. Visually I present a combination of footage from L.A. and Seattle to create an "impossible city" making the viewer second guess from where the footage originates, emphasizing the difference between learning about a city from others and learning about a city through experience. In "A Correspondence" I aim to provide an experience that forces the viewer to realize their own interactions with cities and how their view is shaped by their specific experiences, making everybody's view of a city subjective.

abstract: A resurgence of the American art song is underway. New art song composers such as Adam Guettel, Michael John LaChiusa, and Georgia Stitt are writing engaging and challenging songs that are contributing to this resurgence of art song among college students. College and University musical theatre programs are training performers to be versatile and successful crossover artists. Cross-training in voice is training a performer to be capable of singing many different genres of music effectively and efficiently, which in turn creates a hybrid performer. Cross-training and hybridity can also be applied to musical styles. Hybrid songs that combine musical theatre elements and classical art song elements can be used as an educational tool and create awareness in musical theatre students about the American art song genre and its origins while fostering the need to learn about various styles of vocal repertoire. American composers Leonard Bernstein and Ned Rorem influenced hybridity of classical and musical theatre genres by using their compositional knowledge of musicals and their classical studies to help create a new type of art song. In the past, academic institutions have been more accepting of composers whose careers began in classical music crossing between genres, rather than coming from a more popularized genre such as musical theatre into the classical world. Continued support in college vocal programs will only help the new hybrid form of American art song to thrive. Trained as a classical pianist and having studied poetry and text setting, Georgia Stitt understands the song structure and poetry skills necessary to write a contemporary American art song. This document will examine several of Carol Kimball’s “Component of Style” elements, explore other American composers who have created a hybrid art song form and discuss the implementation of curriculum to create versatile singers. The study will focus on three of Georgia Stitt’s art songs that fit this hybrid style and conclude with a discussion about the future of hybridity in American art song. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Music 2018

Orientador: Álvaro Luiz Hattnher / Banca: Maria de Lurdes Ortiz Gandini Baldan / Banca: Diana Junkes Martha Toneto / Resumo: Antônio de Alcântara Machado e Norman Rockwell são figuras representativas da produção artística das sociedades em que viveram. Machado engajou-se no modernismo brasileiro e inovou a narrativa do conto. Já Rockwell representou a cultura norte-americana por quase todo o século XX, sem utilizar, contudo, formas tão inovadoras como fez Alcântara. Esta dissertação de mestrado pretende analisar a existência de relações formais e temáticas entre os autores, ainda que haja poucas ligações artísticas, sociais ou econômicas entre eles. Valendo-se da teoria da intermidialidade e das funções da linguagem de Jakobson, busca-se estruturar um quadro comparativo e aumentar as possibilidades de leituras relativas a cultura e literatura expostas em parte da obra de Alcântara Machado e da de Norman Rockwell / Abstract: Antônio de Alcântara Machado and Norman Rockwell were representative figures when we think about Brazilian and American artistic production. Machado was engaged in the Brazilian modernism and innovated the narrative structure of short-stories. Rockwell, on the other hand, represented the American culture on his canvases for almost the entire twentieth century, without using, however, the same innovative way of production as Alcântara did. This dissertation aims to analyze the existence of formal and thematic links between those artists, even with few artistic, social or economic connection between them. Drawing on the theories about Intermidiality and Jakobson's functions of language, our intent is to structure a comparative panel and to increase the possibilities of readings related to culture and literature exhibited in the artistic production by Alcântara Machado and Normal Rockwell / Mestre

Nessa dissertação, a viagem-expedição ao Rio Negro, realizada por Pierre Restany, Frans Krajcberg e Sepp Baendereck em 1978, e a análise das circunstâncias que levaram à escrita do Manifesto do Naturalismo Integral, são tomados como ponto de partida para refletir sobre a atuação do crítico Pierre Restany no processo de internacionalização da arte latino-americana nos anos 1960 e 1970. Com foco no contexto brasileiro, concentrado no eixo São Paulo - Rio de Janeiro, a recepção negativa do manifesto pela classe intelectual brasileira será analisada a partir de documentos da época conservados no Fundo Pierre Restany dos Archives de la Critique dArt (Rennes-França) e das matérias jornalísticas publicadas nos jornais da época. Procuramos analisar as diferentes representações de paisagens presentes nos documentos desaminados e as subjacentes visões da arte: por um lado, a floresta exótica e sublime evocada por Restany através do conceito de choque amazônico e sua inserção na teorização de uma arte planetária e internacional e, por outro, a Amazônia enquanto território de luta e resistência no processo de construção da identidade brasileira nos escritos daqueles autores que, como Francisco Bittencourt, Mário Pedrosa e Frederico Morais, pleitearam a afirmação de narrativas historicamente subalternizadas, contribuindo à criação de uma gnose liminar, ou seja, de um novo lugar de enunciação na história da arte. / In this dissertation, the voyage-expedition to the Rio Negro, realized by Pierre Restany, Frans Krajcberg e Sepp Baendereck in 1978, and the analysis of the circumstances which led to the writing of the Manifesto of Integral Naturalism, is taken as a starting point for reflecting on the performance of the critic Pierre Restany in the process of internationalization of Latin American art in the 60s and 70s. With a focus on the Brazilian context, concentrated in the São Paulo - Rio de Janeiro axis, the negative reception of the manifesto by the Brazilian intellectual class will be analyzed from original documents preserved in the Pierre Restany Fund dos Archives de la Critique dArt (Rennes-France) and chronicles published in the newspapers of the time. We aim to analyze the different representations of landscape present in the documents examined and the underlying differents views of art: on the one hand, the exotic and \"sublime\" forest evoked by Restany through the concept of \"Amazonian shock\" and its insertion in the theorization of a planetary and internacional art, and, on the other, the Amazon as a territory of struggle and resistance in the process of constructing the Brazilians identity in the writings of those authors who, like Francisco Bittencourt, Mário Pedrosa and mFrederico Morais, undertook to the affirmation of historically subordinate narrations, contributing to the creation of a \"border gnosis\", that is, of a new place of enunciation in the history of art.

Esta dissertação apresenta uma reflexão sobre o intercâmbio artístico realizado entre São Paulo e Buenos Aires, no decorrer da década de 1970. Essa rede de trocas está focada no Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC USP), sob a gestão de Walter Zanini, e no Centro de Arte y Comunicación (CAYC), dirigido por Jorge Glusberg. Para tanto, iniciamos com um breve estudo sobre as políticas de modernização cultural na Argentina e no Brasil, desde a fundação das primeiras instituições de caráter moderno, nas décadas de 1950 e 1960. Nessa trajetória, traçamos os locais na Argentina onde houve o estímulo às novas vanguardas, desde a ascensão da pop art até a desmaterialização do objeto artístico. Sabemos que o MAC USP e o CAYC constituíram-se como plataformas interdisciplinares e multimídias fundamentais para a ampliação e o incentivo das práticas experimentais, sobretudo da arte conceitual. Desse modo, estabeleceram-se como importantes polos de arte contemporânea na América Latina nesse período. Procuramos analisar os interesses particulares de ambas as gestões, o perfil institucional e os mecanismos de divulgação e circulação das propostas conceituais amparadas pelas duas entidades. E, por fim, mapeamos a presença dos artistas argentinos do Grupo de los Trece, ligados ao CAYC, no acervo do MAC USP. / This dissertation offers a reflection on the artistic exchange occurred between Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires in the 1970s. This reciprocal network is centered in the University of Sao Paulos Museum of Contemporary Arte (MAC USP), under de auspice of Walter Zanini, and in Buenos Aires Art and Communication Center (CAYC), directed by Jorge Glusberg. We begin with a brief study of cultural modernization programs in Brazil and Argentina, as of the establishment of the first institutions of a modern nature, in the 1950s and 1960s. In this trajectory we map venues in which new avant-garde were stimulated, from the dawn of pop art to the dematerialization of the artistic object. We demonstrate that MAC USP and CAYC established essential interdisciplinary and multimedia platforms aiming at amplifying and motivating experimental practices, especially concept art, thus constituting important loci of contemporary art in Latin America at that time period. We aim to analyze the particular interests of each administration, their institutional profile and mechanisms to broadcast and promote conceptual propositions sustained by each organization. Finally, we trace the presence of Argentine artists of Grupo Los Trece, associated to CAYC, in MAC USPs collection.

This dissertation explores the artistic expressions of Native womanhood by Native women artists. The intention is to offer further examples of creative acts of resistance that strengthen Native identities, reinforce female empowerment, and reclaim voice, and art. This qualitative study utilized the narratives and the artwork of six Native women artists from diverse artistic practices and tribe/nation affiliations. Visual arts examples included in this study are digital images, muralism, Ledger art, beadworks, Navajo rugs, and Navajo jewelry. Through Kim Anderson's theoretical Native womanhood identity formation model adopted as framework for this study, the results revealed three emergent themes: cultural connections, motherhood, and nurturing the future. Native women artists lived experiences shaped their visual expressions, influencing their materials, approach, subject matter, intentions, motivation and state of mind. This dissertation discloses Native womanhood framework is supportive of visual expressions created by Native women.

Focusing on a period roughly from 1865 to 1900, this dissertation utilizes close readings of paintings, illustrations, photographs, and other material culture to provide a lens on the rapid political and cultural transformation of the final decades of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i. Visual culture played a key role as a coercive tool as postbellum planters and industrialists who eyed Hawai‘i as the first Pacific outpost in an overseas American empire developed a colonial rhetoric that obscured Native authority and visibility and touted the “inevitable” extinction of the Hawaiian race. However, many images from this period which appear to illustrate Hawai‘i’s docility in the face of American supremacy do not fall as neatly into this simple interpretative framework as we might initially assume. For instance, this project observes how figures such as Queen Emma and King David Kalākaua refused to accept the threat to their sovereignty as they themselves leveraged visual culture in resistance to American imperialism. Chapter One analyzes photographs of Queen Emma as reflections on both Victorian mourning culture and Emma’s political ascendency from 1865-1885. Chapter Two explores paintings of early Maui sugar plantations by Enoch Wood Perry, Gideon Jacques Denny, and Joseph Dwight Strong as lenses on questions of slavery, Asian contract labor, and annexation. Chapter Three provides a close reading of the anti-annexation critique in Mabel Clare Craft’s illustrated book Hawaii Nei alongside the visual and literary production of other women who depicted Hawai‘i in the years surrounding annexation. Chapter Four jumps to the mid-20th century as it examines the painted portraits of late nineteenth-century Hawaiian royalty created by Fredda Burwell Holt alongside key works of literature by her husband, John Dominis Holt, a leading voice of the “Hawaiian Renaissance” that emerged in the 1960s following the resolution of Hawaiian statehood. Overall, this dissertation embraces its case studies as necessarily multivalent and open-ended as it resists the tendency to craft a narrative in which primitive indigeneity meekly yielded to the unstoppable barrage of American imperial pressure. Together, these chapters navigate a material landscape of nineteenth-century Hawai‘i that was layered with imperial control as well as opposition.