This thesis tracks the complex relationship between visual art and the decorative in the Twentieth Century. In doing so, it makes a claim for the ongoing interest and viability of decorative practices within visual art, in the wake of their marginalisation within Modernist art and theory. The study is divided into three main sections. First, it demonstrates and questions the exclusion of the decorative within the central currents of modernism. Second, it examines the resurgence of the decorative in postmodern art and theory. This section is based on case studies of a number of postmodern artists whose work gained notice in the 1980s, and which evidences a sustained engagement with a decorative or ornamental aesthetic. The artists include Rosemarie Trockel, Lucas Samaras, Philip Taaffe, and several artists from the Pattern and Decoration Painting Movement of the 1970s. The final component of the study investigates the function and significance of the decorative in the work of a selection of Australian and international contemporary artists. The art of Louise Paramor, Simon Periton and Do-Ho Suh is examined in detail. In addition, the significance of the late work of Henri Matisse is analysed for its relevance to contemporary art practice that employs decorative procedures. The thesis put forward is that an historical reversal has occurred in recent decades, where the decorative has once again become a significant force in experimental visual art.

La Plaza Cubierta, obra del arquitecto venezolano Carlos Raúl Villanueva, es el espacio que articula los edificios de Biblioteca, Rectorado y Aula Magna de la Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas. Alberga una particular propuesta de interacción entre diferentes expresiones artísticas que, junto a la desconcertante ausencia de discurso por parte del proyectista, ha llevado a su adscripción a la poética general de la Síntesis de las Artes, pretendiendo comprender así la obra sin desglosar la riqueza de sus matices. El conjunto que surgió indirectamente de las torsiones experimentadas por el proyecto durante su concepción, se inscribe en el campo de clausuras e indeterminaciones en el que se estructuraron las construcciones del arte de vanguardia. No obstante, su vivencia trasciende las trasmisiones unívocas, herederas del programa romántico y latentes aún en las manifestaciones de comienzos del siglo XX, por una difusa definición como plaza, por la condición de cubierta, por su paradójica designación, así como por la presencia de una arquitectura que propicia inusitadas conexiones mediante la dramatización de las emociones plásticas desde la desnudez de sus componentes. La riqueza de significados emanada de los juegos de luces y sombras que se suceden y de la dilatada confrontación de sus sistemas espaciales sugieren un espectro infinito de interpretaciones que apelan al substrato de indeterminación propio del arte mas actual. Estas características constituyen una vertiente del arte de la segunda mitad del siglo XX que, eludiendo la luz, elogió el umbral y habitó los resquicios y pliegues de una obra abierta. Armar la topología que urde el observador al experimentar la construcción espacial generada por Villanueva y descubrir los fundamentos constitutivos de su poética particular a partir de los documentos no textuales que estuvieron presentes en su concepción, es la ambiciosa proposición de esta Tesis. La metodología asumida parte de cuestionar la operatividad del programa contenido en los planteamientos estéticos de la Síntesis de las Artes, desarrollados en torno a una difusa teoría de la Obra Total (Gesamtkunstwerk), para abordar un ejercicio de acondicionamiento de la mirada. Desde este intento por saber ver, como lo definiera Berger, se rearma el discurso espacial del arte de vanguardia elaborado por aquellos autores que asumieron la diseminación y la percepción dilatada subyacente en las múltiples derivaciones de la interpretación. El análisis fenomenológico de La Plaza Cubierta surge de cotejar las consideraciones dimanadas de este enfoque con el desglose de los factores y elementos que la estructuran. Este método evidencia que el objeto concebido por Villanueva no busca entregarse en un contexto ya dispuesto para el consumo, sino presentarse como un lugar de conexiones en el que la obra emerge de la participación del intérprete, quien en sus desplazamientos completa su armazón. Se descubrirá entonces que los esquemas de los flujos establecidos por el arquitecto constituyen la base operativa de esta obra. El carácter plástico que Villanueva imprimió al dibujo de los Movimientos, como el propio autor los llama, reconoce los límites de los sistemas de representación de la Arquitectura, al mismo tiempo que expande los márgenes de expresividad del hecho espacial. Esos trazos sinuosos que celebran el devenir y desestiman la entidad del contenedor, ensamblan un auténtico Manifiesto gráfico y esbozan la poética suspendida de un proyecto transtextual entre distintos soportes expresivos. Una topología construida a partir de una arquitectura liminar que apeló a lo más esencial de su gramática. / The Plaza Cubierta, a masterpiece of the Venezuelan architect Carlos Raul Villanueva is the space in which the main buildings of the University City of Caracas are articulated: the Library, the Rectorate, and the Aula Magna. It houses a particular proposal of interaction among different artistic expressions and along the disconcerting absence of discourse from the architect. It has been attributed to the general poetics of the Synthesis of the Arts, by trying to understand in this way the work without detaching the richness of its shade.The space, emerged indirectly from the torsion experimented in the project during its conception, is registered in the field of closures and indeterminations in which are conceived the proposals of the Avant Garde. However, its experience transcends the univocal transmissions, heiress of the romantic program which even were latency in the plastic manifestations of the beginnings of the XXth. Century, due to a diffuse definition as square, the condition of being covered, its paradoxical designation and also for the presence of an architecture which supports unusual connections through the dramatization of the plastic emotions from the bareness of its components.The richness in meanings that emanates from the games of lights and shadows, which follow one another, and the extended confrontation of its spatial systems suggest an Infinite spectrum of interpretations that appeals to the indetermination substrate that is characteristic of the up to date art. These particularities constitute a trend in the art of the second half of the XX century that, by avoiding light, praises the threshold and inhabited the corners and folds of an Open piece of work. The ambitious purpose of this thesis is to decipher the topology articulated by the observant when experimenting the spatial construction generated by Villanueva and to discover the constituent foundation of its particular poetics beginning with non-textual documents, which were present in his conception.The methodology used starts by questioning the capacity to operate of the program restrained in the aesthetics statements of the Synthesis of the Arts (developed around a diffuse theory of the Gesamtkunstwerk) to approach an exercise of conditioning of the vision. From this intention of knowing how to look, as its defined by Berger, it is rebuild the spatial discourse of the Avant Garde given by those authors who assumed the dissemination with the underlying extended perception in the multiple derivations of the interpretation.The phenomenological analysis of the Plaza Cubierta comes from comparing the consideration arisen from this approach with the separation of the factors and elements, which organize it. This method makes evident that the object conceived by Villanueva does not look to fit in a context already prepared for the consumption, but to present itself as a place of connections in where the work emerges from the participation of the observer who, through his movements, completes the Frame. It will be discovered that the flow diagrams established by the architect constitute the operative base of this work. The plastic character that Villanueva imprinted to the movements drawing, "Movimientos" as he calls it, acknowledges the limits in the system of representation in architecture and, at the same time, expands the margins of expressiveness of the spatial fact.These sinuous traces, which celebrate the becoming and disesteem the entity of the spatial container, assemble an authentic graphic manifestation and outlines the poetics suspended of a trans-textual project among different expressive supports. A topology built beginning with a borderline architecture that appealed to the most essential of its grammar.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Art History, June 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (doctoral)--RWTH Aachen. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-411).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 366-382).

Thesis--Heidelberg. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 249-264).

This thesis is a sociological exploration of emergent social relations at art exhibition venues. It focuses on the experience of art which the dominant “decoding” metaphor fails to describe conceptually and empirically. To grasp the interactional and emergent character of interaction with art, I constructed a framework that defined audiences as sets of emerging social relations. Building on the concepts of experience (Merleau-Ponty), enchantment (Gell), multiplicity and enactment (Latour, Mol and others), I emphasise the situated and embodied nature of art experience. The study draws on a series of ethnographic observations at the exhibition sites of a number of Moscow art institutions. It is supplemented with unstructured interviews with visitors and art professionals at these venues (artists, curators, wardens etc.). Conceptually, I have suggested a dual social ontology that art establishes in the events of perception. Bringing uncertainty into visitors’ actions, art enables interactions in which visitors establish meanings, and leads to practices that make their art experience organized and less problematic. The thesis examines the ways art experience becomes stable through meaning-making events supported by socio-material relations. These relations enable participants to produce recognizable actions. The process of meaning-making at the exhibitions is seen not as a direct communication of pre-given aesthetic meanings (as the decoding perspective would assume), but rather is understood as consisting of multiple instances of micro-level discoveries which mediate an “enchanting” form of art experience. Enchantment engenders the social relations of expertise which visitors practically achieve in their interaction with material objects and through performances of meaningfully recognizable actions. T Though the study mainly focuses on the experience of interactive art installations, I argue that the conceptual considerations and empirical results are relevant to the experience of other forms of art. The thesis is intended to make a contribution to the so-called “new sociology of art”, not just by subjecting the dominant Bourdieu-inspired assumptions about “decoding” to critique, but also by pointing out the conceptual limits of much of the new sociology of art, and pointing towards new conceptual horizons for sociology’s ongoing encounter with matters artistic.

No description available.

This thesis begins with a consideration of the contributions of modem and contemporary ideas to the field of aesthetics. Out of these contributions, selected theorists from the Independent School of British Psychoanalysis are applied as a contemporary understanding of the practice and intent of Modernist art as seen in the work of the New York School of painters and specifically to the paintings 'On the Theme of Woman' by Willem de Kooning exhibited in 1953. More recent psychoanalytic formulations of aggression, self and subjectivity are put forward as a reinterpretation of the issues surrounding these selected works. The main focus here is on the role of aggression which is reformulated as a search for subjectivity and separateness. In offering these reinterpretations, this thesis draws on the theories of Donald Winnicott and Christopher Bollas. Bollas' notion of the 'transformational object', the work of the unconscious, which he terms 'cracking up' and the idiom of the self in process, is used as a basis for a newer understanding of Modernist art's methodology and interest in the unconscious and self. The final chapter applies Winnicott's concepts of maternal functions and 'object usage' to de Kooning's 1953 Woman paintings. This reinterpretation is offered as an alternative to the more negative interpretations that prevailed at the time of this exhibition which emphasised a negative approach to the female as subject. Instead, it is argued that these works offered the artist a creative arena in which to explore psychological struggles involving self and other in a safe and adaptive way. / Thesis (M. Fine Art)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

This dissertation considers the aesthetic strategies and ethical implications of contemporary earth art. Drawing from feminist and ecological critiques of phenomenology, it posits that an ethical preoccupation with the earth is identifiable in works that stage the artist's inability to condense natural phenomena into an intelligible art object thereby evidencing the earth's excess beyond the field of perception. Contemporary earth art has the paradoxical goal of evoking the sensorial plenitude of the earth without representing it as such. The first chapter analyzes Robert Smithson's monumental sculpture, the Spiral Jetty (1970), and suggests that the artist deploys the emblem of the whirlpool to express the artwork's constitutive rupture from the earth, a loss that the artwork subsequently discloses in its textual modes, including an essay and a film that document the construction of the sculpture. Chapter two examines the recurrence of the whirlpool motif and other anagrammatic shapes such as black holes, tornadoes, shells and nests, in earth art from the last three decades. In contemporary practices the whirlpool allegorizes an ethical attentiveness to the earth's alterity; not only does it thematize the artwork's separation from perpetual natural regeneration, it signals the artist's withdrawal from the attempt to construct a totalizing perspective of the site. Chapter three addresses performance and installation works that feature the contact between the artist's body and the earth, and in particular, the body's role in delineating the point of friction between the earth's sensorial plenitude and its resistance to representation. Earth artists thereby assert the body as a surface that separates itself out from the earth and receives sensation of it as other. The conclusion summarizes the main arguments of the previous chapters through a discussion of a three-part installation by Chris Drury entitled Whorls (2005).