Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Art History, August 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

M.A . / The nude is generally approached as a historical and cultural product of specific societies, while a generic conception of the nude as a genre of gendered art (Gill Saunders, 1989), rather than as form (Kenneth Clark, 1956) is more vaguely perceived in underlying assumptions in texts on the nude, and the works themselves. The tradition of the nude is extremely varied, and complex. My purpose is not to unify or simplify this tradition. Any nude is never one thing alone, but is subject to interpretation. The nude, largely through recent feminist interpretations, has come to fulfil the role of trustee for alterity (Lynda Nead, 1992). By considering the main typologies in which the nude has been studied and interpreted, I hope to show the importance and significance of gender in art, aesthetics, and finally, philosophy. The significance of this thesis is to confront the antagonism between traditional and contemporary feminist issues and that of the standard patriarchal tradition. In this regard the nude is an interesting and rewarding genre of the expression of gender, as it deals with the delicate concerns of this category. The central problematic of the research is the question of gender. On an epistemological level, feminism 'introduces' the category of gender, which subverts and challenges all previous conceptions of the human subject. While I wish to bear in mind the history of oppression through the neglect and negation of the category of gender, I also recognise the vital importance of moving beyond this structure by proposing the celebration of plurality through more life-affirming readings of nudity in art. Although femeneutics may sound idiosyncratic, I propose to use the term as shorthand for feminist studies combined with a hermeneutic approach.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisors: Wendy Bellion and Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Dept. of Art History. Includes bibliographical references.

Formed in Toronto in 1969, the trio of artists known as General Idea developed a body of work focused on the construction of Active identities and elaborate mythologies parodying the popular myths of art and the artist: the artist as genius, celebrity and avant-garde rebel. It is often said that General Idea's work is at its core an inquiry into art's methods of production, dissemination and reception - an example of the tendency in Western art of the 1960s and '70s towards the dematerialization of the art object and the critique of art's institutions. In this thesis, I argue that General Idea's work also demands to be seen on a broader level, as an exploration of artifice and the manipulation of conventional codes in everyday life. I maintain that, above and beyond their critical interest in art and pop culture, G.I.'s project was to reveal and question the most fundamental social conventions of all: gender and identity. Through their use of pseudonyms, Active identities, pageants and performances, General Idea invite us to consider the masks we wear, the poses we assume and the identities we perform even in our most banal moments, through bodily gestures, speech acts and the manipulation of surfaces. A project like The 1971 Miss General Idea Pageant - staged at a time when normative gender roles and sexual identities were being called into question by the Gay Liberation Movement and the feminist movement - suggests an awareness on the part of General Idea of the constructed nature of identity and gender (a notion later popularized in academic discourse and cultural practice of the 1980s and '90s). General Idea's artistic collaboration spanned more than twenty-five years, but it is the period from the early 1970s to the mid-'80s that constitutes the focus of this thesis. I argue that the boundaries separating masculine and feminine, straight and gay, fact and fiction, are complicated and challenged most effectively in the first two phases of their collaboration. The first phase is typically described as General Idea's "conceptual" phase because of the ephemeral, idea-based nature of the work. It can be said to begin with The 1971 Miss General Idea Pageant and end with the symbolic arson of The 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion in 1977. The second phase, marked by a proliferation of poodle imagery in a variety of media, followed hot on the heels of the torching of the Pavillion and continued until the mid-1980s. Although the shift from "conceptual" art to a more material art object necessarily entails a shift in strategies of representation, I argue that both phases of artistic production rely on visual and verbal signifying practices broadly defined as Camp. At a time when it had fallen out of favour as a viable form of self-expression in politicized gay communities, Camp was taken up by General Idea as both a critical tool and a key to attaining visibility - a ticket to ride and a strategic kick in the ass of the dominant order.

The subject matter for this research is the representation of femininities and masculinities in Roman art with particular reference to that of Roman Britain. The study focuses on the visual presentation of gender for specific deities, personifications and figural images in funerary art; this includes concepts of sexuality that in some cases become entwined with the study of gender. I have endeavoured to demonstrate how socially constructed values add to the understandings of gender and Roman art. The first chapter concentrates on Roman concepts relating to masculinities and femininities, detailing how these are portrayed in visual culture. This entails the identification of gender markers in various forms including clothing (for example the toga and stola), jewellery (such as the bulla) and distinct objects (for instance, military paraphernalia, weaving combs and spinning equipment). Following this broad introduction to gender in Roman art, the study then centres on specific deities, commencing with Venus and Mars, then Diana and Apollo, and Minerva and Hercules - each one has a particular gender ascription. I examine these in terms of visual representation and how their specific femininities and masculinities were presented. Personifications and figural funerary art, respectively, are the following and final chapters of the research. The former deals with the use of personifications in Roman art and the latter with patronage and presentation of figural tombstones and inscriptions. Both chapters observe these issues with preference towards the demonstration of gender allocation and any undertones implicated.

Paul Emmanuel is a South African artist who produces incised drawings, outdoor installations and prints (particularly intaglio etchings and manière noire lithographs). These focus on the representation of male bodies and experience. Having begun his career as a collaborative printmaker, since 2002, his work has become more ambitious as well as critically acclaimed. In 2010, his most recent body of work, Transitions, was exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art in Washington D.C. I propose that Emmanuel represents the male body as a presence that either is not easily seen or that actively disappears or erases itself. Its subjectivity, and the viewer’s engagement with it, may be characterised as one of intimacy, exposure, loss and vulnerability. Emmanuel’s work may be said to question conventions and ideals of masculinity while, at the same time, refusing any prescriptive interpretation. To develop this proposition, I examine specifically Emmanuel’s incising drawing technique that ‘holds open’ transitions in male lives. In these liminal moments, Emmanuel represents men as ‘seen’ to change state or status, thereby exposing the ongoing process of building masculine identities. Equally elucidatory is Emmanuel’s imprinting of his own body, which, in his use of “traces” that reveal the vacillation between presence and absence, makes contingently ‘visible’ this gendering process, and has particular implications for the expression of subjectivity in a contemporary South African context.

Formed in Toronto in 1969, the trio of artists known as General Idea developed a body of work focused on the construction of Active identities and elaborate mythologies parodying the popular myths of art and the artist: the artist as genius, celebrity and avant-garde rebel. It is often said that General Idea's work is at its core an inquiry into art's methods of production, dissemination and reception - an example of the tendency in Western art of the 1960s and '70s towards the dematerialization of the art object and the critique of art's institutions. In this thesis, I argue that General Idea's work also demands to be seen on a broader level, as an exploration of artifice and the manipulation of conventional codes in everyday life. I maintain that, above and beyond their critical interest in art and pop culture, G.I.'s project was to reveal and question the most fundamental social conventions of all: gender and identity. Through their use of pseudonyms, Active identities, pageants and performances, General Idea invite us to consider the masks we wear, the poses we assume and the identities we perform even in our most banal moments, through bodily gestures, speech acts and the manipulation of surfaces. A project like The 1971 Miss General Idea Pageant - staged at a time when normative gender roles and sexual identities were being called into question by the Gay Liberation Movement and the feminist movement - suggests an awareness on the part of General Idea of the constructed nature of identity and gender (a notion later popularized in academic discourse and cultural practice of the 1980s and '90s). General Idea's artistic collaboration spanned more than twenty-five years, but it is the period from the early 1970s to the mid-'80s that constitutes the focus of this thesis. I argue that the boundaries separating masculine and feminine, straight and gay, fact and fiction, are complicated and challenged most effectively in the first two phases of their collaboration. The first phase is typically described as General Idea's "conceptual" phase because of the ephemeral, idea-based nature of the work. It can be said to begin with The 1971 Miss General Idea Pageant and end with the symbolic arson of The 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion in 1977. The second phase, marked by a proliferation of poodle imagery in a variety of media, followed hot on the heels of the torching of the Pavillion and continued until the mid-1980s. Although the shift from "conceptual" art to a more material art object necessarily entails a shift in strategies of representation, I argue that both phases of artistic production rely on visual and verbal signifying practices broadly defined as Camp. At a time when it had fallen out of favour as a viable form of self-expression in politicized gay communities, Camp was taken up by General Idea as both a critical tool and a key to attaining visibility - a ticket to ride and a strategic kick in the ass of the dominant order. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

This research involves a discourse analysis of several alternative video works produced by Paul Wong, an alternative video artist based in Vancouver, BC. Utilizing Judith Butler's "Subjects of sex/gender/desire," (1999) to comment and expand on Michel Foucault's four 'rules' for conducting discourse analysis, as laid out in The history of sexuality volume I: An introduction, Part Four, Chapter 2, "Method," (1978, 1990) I analyse Wong's 60 unit: Bruise (1976), Confused: Sexual views (1984) and So are you (1994). By focusing on discourses addressing the intersections of gender, race and sexuality in Wong's work, this analysis focuses on how alternative video art can be examined as activist work from a sociological perspective. Wong's video works reflect his engagements with intersecting queer and racialised identities and, through discourse analysis, can be shown to reflect, question and challenge mainstream queer and Chinese histories in Canada. Exploring Wong's contribution to discourses on gender, race and sexuality acts to underscore the contributions of alternative media artists to changing understandings of historical relations and to mainstream historical constructions of identity. Postmodern perspectives inform much alternative video practice and have worked to break down the distinctions between disciplines, recognize previously ignored mediums as legitimate and important forms and also to recognize a multiplicity of narratives and engage with marginalized perspectives. Utilizing postmodern perspectives, then, this research challenges notions of historical 'truths,' in mainstream narratives and histories. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

This thesis identifies and analyzes gendering in the art writing devoted to Lee Bontecou's metal and canvas sculptures made from the 1959 - 1964. Through a careful reading of reviews and articles written about Bontecou's constructions, this thesis reconstructs the context of the art world in the United States at mid-century and investigates how cultural expectations regarding gender directed the reception of Bontecou's art, beginning in 1959 and continuing through mid-1960s. Incorporating a description of the contemporaneous cultural context with description of the constructions and an analysis of examples of primary writing, the thesis chronologically follows the evolution of a tendency in art writing to associate gender-specific motivation and interpretation to one recurring feature of Bontecou's works.

M.Tech. (Fine Art) / In this study, I explore the way in which materials and biomorphic forms are used in selected artworks to convey aspects of gendered and cultural identity constructs. This is done with specific reference to Nicholas Hlobo’s work and to the artwork I produce as part of the practical component of my research. I have chosen Hlobo’s installation Izithunzi (2009) because it is a pertinent example of the way in which he uses biomorphic form and typifies his use of materials, both of which have some similarities to my work. Although Hlobo’s use of materials is widely discussed in the available literature on his work, little has been written on his use of biomorphic form. To address this gap in the literature, I look specifically at how Hlobo uses biomorphic form in Izithunzi to represent what I argue to be the hybridity of his gendered and cultural identity. In the practical component, I present a series of sculptures made from second-hand furniture, polystyrene, concrete, plastic, stuffing, fabric, thread, steel pipe and fibreglass. As Hlobo does in Izithunzi, I consciously make reference to biomorphic forms.