The dissertation presents a cultural analysis of contemporary art collecting and art production with an illustration of patterns that overlap in collecting and art production practices in contemporary art. The illustrated visual network shows how institutions, local context, social strategies and prestige overlap in their influences on art production as a cause for collecting contemporary art. Economic exchange, reputation, a perception of time, and the personal and emotional understanding of objects and material are four patterns that illustrate reasons for collecting contemporary art in conclusion. This analysis is based on a visualisation of the structured field data that was generated in a participatory field study in the New York art world, consisting of semi-structured interviews between 2013 – 2015. Limitations in usability and interface design, and the need for a sufficient visualisation tool for qualitative data analysis, drew the focus of this study to the development of a new data visualisation software. After a peer-reviewed process, the software Entity Mapper was selected for use in this thesis to visually analyse the collected and structured data. The analysis takes location, size, hierarchy and movement of the structured data in the visual map into consideration for concluding theoretical statements.

Since the 1930s Lucha Libre Mexicana, Mexican wrestling, has evolved as a manifestation of popular culture combining spectacle, sport, theatre and ritual. Lucha Libre Mexicana, an event based performance using the mask, connects and reconnects to myth, stories, and ritual that societies, in this case the Mexican, need in order to find meaning within daily events and the contradictions and questions that confront every individual. This research analyses the cultural meanings of Lucha Libre Mexicana from the point of view of a diasporic artist and contextualizes knowledge to determine artistic practice. Identity and the construction of identity are explored throughout this thesis. The various aspects of Lucha Libre Mexicana such as the masks, the holds, the wrestlers themselves, and the performative nature of the spectacle, serve as referents to make connections to the artist’s own culture and the idea of constructed Mexicanness. This study includes a number of practice-based inquiries that are the result of the analysis and reflection on Lucha Libre and diasporic Mexicanness. The study reveals the manner by which creative processes including thinking in materials enable the artist scholar to acquire knowledge and thematic understanding. This thesis demonstrates how the traditional icons of the Mexican luchador and his mask acquire an even stronger iconic and symbolic value, emblematic of justice, outside the Lucha Libre ring. The study contributes to the field of cultural studies by adding to the understanding of the historical timeline of the development of Lucha Libre Mexicana. A large body of original work developed from the investigations and analyses of the subjects and issues discussed.

This thesis is a practice-based investigation into the articulation of pain beyond representation in contemporary art practice today – in particular the art created under the shadow of violence – conducted by prolonged actions that strive against this concept of a representational logic. Exploring the contemporary Colombian conflict as my case study, the aim of my work is to ask if it is possible to move past the existing logics of representation through a form of making, that when confronted by the distressing sensations of conflict shatters its existing logics. My visual practice is concerned with actions that embody the performative dynamics of movement, in which reality itself gets inscribed into the created images, by retaining a trace of the context that surrounds and affects what is rendered too painful to be articulated and exists silently beyond description in the work. In Colombia, trauma has clearly become culturally transitive; it affects society as a whole through the recurring accumulation of events and the generational transmission of unprocessed histories, obstructing cultural digestion. As such, this practice-based research is situated within complex relations of contemporary culture, social forces, and past and present historical events. At present, under circumstances of constant sociopolitical conflict, this thesis argues that art must register but cannot hope to master what must be approached and confronted through prompting change by poignancy as opposed to puncture. Thus, this thesis proposes a new practical and theoretical interpretation for art practice that engages with this problematic: the reality of extreme pain, which may be forgotten by being remembered through persistent gestural actions of healing as erasure, which draw on affective levels capable of shifting subjectively a caring understanding and an elaboration of such pain. My contribution to the field of art practice is primarily offered through my practical work, which here presents a passage to beyond through the Matrixial sphere and its healing notions of art; the objective being to form a link between remembering and forgetting by engaging acts of endurance, in which I use making as a reaction performed with-in or against the accumulated memory that exists as an active and present-negative force inside the reality of conflict and war. In and through my work I attempt an utterance, which is complicated, censored and interrupted by trauma, yet always striving to find ways to transform its ever-building burdens.

This work looks at the artistic production of the Porfiriato (1876-1910) with particular attention to the representation of prehispanic cultures and their incorporation into an official historiography. Whilst highlighting the growing popularity of prehispanic and conquest themes, during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the research centres on the study of what may be described as a 'neo-prehispanic' genre in order to explore issues of identity and nationalism in the arts. The use of academic styles for the artistic interpretation of prehispanic material coincides with an already growing concern to redefine prehispanic cultures as 'classical' civilisations. The neo-prehispanic as a style may therefore be understood as a reappropriation of the past via western canons and art schools, and the construction of a neo-prehispanic imagery as a means of 'cleansing' the barbaric. The analysis concentrates on the function of neo-prehispanic representations by looking at the reception of these images in relation to the aesthetic ideas operating at the time, and their production within the institutional framework of the Academy of San Cartos. It also looks at State-funded projects in order to highlight the cultural politics of the Porfiriato which sought to celebrate the cultural legacies of prehispanic Mexico. The study will hence seek to explore the particularities of a national style, the function of art in the Porfiriato, and the relationship between artistic production and the construction of a national identity. All of this will be looked at in relation to history painting, monuments and architecture. The main objectives of the research aim to be both practical (a catalogue of material 'Appendix B'), and interpretative. The correct cataloguing and identification of this material together with an analysis of their function within the context of Porfirian society will provide invaluable material for more research, and will constitute the original contribution of my PhD.

The role of national cinema in shaping, reflecting and contesting a complex national identity that is the site of conflict and struggle is the central interest of this study of contemporary Peruvian cinema, 1988-2004. This project examines the relationship between cinema, state and identity in Peru, with a specific focus on the representation of the political violence between the state and Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) that began in 1980. It looks in particular at portrayals of important events, characters and consequences of the bloody conflict that for a time threatened to destabilize the nation entirely. It considers these representations in the context of a time of great change for Peruvian society and of transition for Peruvian national cinema, and addresses the relationship between developments in film policy and the formation of Peruvian national identity in cinema. As such, it draws on debates about the nature and function of national cinemas, as well as on discussions between artists, cultural theorists and sociologists about the evolution of peruanidad since the declaration of independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century. Once the main elements of the cinematic and social crises have been explored and established in Chapters Two and Three, the remainder of the project consists of three sets of chronologically ordered analyses of individual films that somehow defied the national cinema crisis, and that provoked debate on both the conflict itself, and on broader questions pertaining to the relationship between national identity and violence. The conclusion considers these films as an interlinked body of cinematic works that share similar themes and concerns. It summarises the issues they tackle, the ideological and formal approaches they take to those issues, the potential social and cultural impact, and their contribution to the crystallization of a Peruvian national identity at the start of the twenty-first century.