Using data from the 1982, 1985, 1992, and 1997 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), this thesis tests the effects of class, age, gender and race on the breadth of musical preferences that respondents report to liking. Specifically, the omnivore/univore framework developed by Peterson (1992) is examined. It is hypothesized that age and social class are positively related to musical omnivorousness (liking a wide variety of music). That is, older people and people higher in social economic standing will be more omnivorousness in musical preferences. The underlying theory here is that in today's society, being omnivorous is a form of cultural capital. Cultural exclusivity is no longer valued as it may have been in the past and is more often a sign of ignorance rather than status. Hence, the hypothesis is that people today will use a wide knowledge of musical forms to help them network and "get ahead." This should be more important for people as they age because the need to network as a way of moving higher in the social economic hierarchy should be more important. Additionally, it is hypothesized that women and whites will be more omnivorousness because they may feel less alienated in general from mainstream society, especially at younger ages. Hence, blacks and men will gravitate towards fewer genres of musical as a symbolic rejection of the values of mainstream society. This should also be more salient when people are younger. Overall, the findings presented support the contention the omnivorousness is replacing exclusiveness as a sign of status. Indeed, the findings show that class is positively related to omnivorousness, age is positively related to omnivorousness, being female is positively related to omnivorousness, and that whites are more omnivorous than blacks. Perhaps most interesting, however, is that the relationship between age and omnivorousness was determined to be a curvilinear relationship. No other analysts have reported this. Moreover, the findings present evidence that age may indeed be a more important determinant of musical omnivorousness than social class. Hence, it is concluded that no longer should musical preferences be examined simply as varying by social class but also as changing across the life cycle. / Master of Science

By focusing on character, humor, and loose narrative, I create a world full of quirky, pitiful creatures that blur the lines between illustration and "Fine Art". Inspired by golden age cartoons, Pop-Surrealism, and late 50's commercial art, I make work that speaks of the awkwardness of human emotion while keeping a "tongue in cheek" attitude about everyday life. This work is expressed through illustration, animation, sculpture, and a lot of sarcasm.

Depuis la fin des années 1960 se sont développées différentes pratiques artistiques délibérément bêtes, assumant et parfois même revendiquant leur bêtise. Dans une approche ancrée à la fois dans l'histoire culturelle et la théorie esthétique, prenant en compte les paramètres que sont les modalités d'exposition, l'industrie du divertissement et le rôle des collectionneurs, il s'agit de comprendre comment un phénomène à l'origine excentré, marginal et parfois contestataire, est devenu une donnée centrale de la production artistique contemporaine. Le premier mouvement revient sur la tradition de la bêtise en histoire de l'art. Partant de l'expression « bête comme un peintre », y est proposé une relecture du « retour à la peinture» du début 1980 (Figuration Libre, Mülheimer Freiheit à Cologne, bad painting américaine). Le deuxième moment porte sur les mécanismes de diffusion, d'expansion, de légitimation et d'institutionnalisation de l'art bête dans les années 1990 et 2000, abordant notamment les pratiques Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley, Richard Jackson, Gelitin, Wim Delvoye ou encore Damien Hirst. Le troisième et dernier temps consiste en une généalogie alternative de cette histoire de la bêtise en prenant la Californie comme paradigme. On y développe l'hypothèse qu'à Los Angeles sont en germe, depuis le milieu des années 1960, les formes de bêtise artistique qui s'imposent à l'échelle internationale depuis les années 1990 : l'industrie du divertissement et le culte du succès, de la célébrité et de la richesse, et son contre-point dynamique, son envers dévoyé, le modèle du bad boy made in L.A. / Stupidity (bêtise) can be apprehended as bodily, vulgar, even regressive. Or it can simply be understood as foolish, silly or childish. I investigate all of these strains of "bêtise" in order to demonstrate the key role it has played in shaping aesthetic styles and debates about contemporary art from the late 1960s to the present day. The dissertation thus traces these fluctuations by looking at the shift from the 1960-l 970s, when dumbness, used as a critical tool, occupied a position at the margins of the art world, to the l 980-1990s when "bêtise" began to constitute an autonomous aesthetics mobilized by the art world's biggest stars. What used to be marginal then became preeminent, what used to be popular culture became high art, while lowbrow turned into highbrow. The first part takes a look back at the tradition of stupidity in art history. Viewed from the popular phrase "stupid as a painter", I propose a reevaluation of the so-called "return to painting" in the early 80s (Figuration libre, Bad Painting, Mülheimer Freiheit Grup in Koln) as an initial step. The second section analyses the mechanisms of diffusion, expansion, legitimation and institutionalization of "dumb art" in the 90s and 2000s, focusing on practices of artists like Martin Kippenberger, JeffKoons, Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley, Gelitin, Wim Delvoye or Damien Hirst. The third and last part is an attempt to write an alternative narrative to this history of stupidity, in which I propose California as a paradigmatic model. The entertainment industry and the cult of success, fame and wealth, and its dynamic counterpoint, its dark side, the made-in-L.A.-bad-boy model played major roles in that process.