This study constitutes the first critical history of dematerialization. Coined by critics Lucy Lippard and John Chandler in their 1968 essay, “The Dematerialization of Art,” this term was initially used to describe an emergent “ultra-conceptual” art that would render art objects obsolete by emphasizing the thinking process over material form. Lippard and Chandler believed dematerialization would thwart the commodification of art. Despite Lippard admitting in 1973 that art had not dematerialized into unmediated information or experience, the term has since entered art historians’ lexicons as a standard means to characterize Conceptual Art. While art historians have debated the implications of dematerialization and its actuality, they have yet to examine closely Lippard and Chandler’s foundational essay, which has been anthologized in truncated form. If dematerialization was not intrinsic to Conceptual Art, what was it? By closely analyzing “The Dematerialization of Art” and Lippard and Chandler’s other overlooked collaborative essays, this dissertation will shed light on the genealogy of dematerialization by contending they were not describing a trend limited to what is now considered Conceptual Art. By investigating the socio-historical connections of dematerialization, this dissertation will advance a more far-reaching view of the ideology of dematerialization, a cultural misrecognition that the world should be propelled toward immateriality that is located at the intersection of particle physics, environmental sustainability, science-fiction, neoliberal politics, and other discourses. This analysis then focuses on three case studies that examine singular works of art over a twenty-year period: Eva Hesse’s Laocoön (1966), James Turrell’s Skyspace I (1974), and Anish Kapoor’s 1000 Names (1979-85). In doing so, this dissertation will accomplish two objectives. First, it looks at how these works materially respond to the ideology of dematerialization and provide a means for charting how this cultural desire unfolds across space and time. Second, this dissertation contends that contrary to Lippard and Chandler’s prognostication, dematerialization—and immateriality—does not correlate to emancipation from capitalization. Rather, it will be shown that dematerialization, its rhetoric, and its strategies can actually be enlisted into the service of the commoditizing forces Lippard and Chandler hoped it would escape.

This dissertation provides the first in-depth examination of American artist Stuart Davis’s early theoretical writings made between 1918 and 1923. These writings are seminal documents in his artistic development. They lay the foundation for the creation of some of his most important works, inlcuding his groundbreaking Tobacco paintings of 1921 to his renowned Egg Beater series of 1927–1928, which Davis claimed set the direction for all his subsequent artistic output. One of the key ideas in these early writings is Davis’s concept of realism. This study traces the origin of Davis’s realism to his interaction with a network of ideas arising from cubism, symbolism, New York dada, and anarchist philosophy. In doing so, this study considers how Davis’s notion of realism informed both the development of his style and his iconography in his works of the 1920s.

In 2010, Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds made its debut in Tate Modern, which promoted Ai to be one of the most famous and respected contemporary Chinese artists. This Conceptual art work has multiple layers of meanings, which all corresponds to the Western expectations for a successful contemporary Chinese artist. In fact, the Western art world has long held bias and stereotypes towards international artists. Ai chose to perform his personality to conform to the expectations and Western ideologies, which brought him international fame. On the other hand, other Chinese artists, including Cai Guo-Qiang and Zhou Chunya, don't totally agree with these Western ideologies, and therefore their fame in the society are less distinguished than Ai.

My art is a means for investigating the passage of time, the decay of physical things, and the truth of mortality. I explore these concepts through process-oriented sculptures that emphasize ritual and material. The process is communicated with the creation of relics, often existing as drawings or the remains of degenerated sculptures. These relics bear witness to the process. I focus on themes of temporal change and death because they remain central to our metaphysical and physical existence. I see a diminished reverence for the power of death in our culture, and through my work I aim to pay homage to death while offering viewers an experience of “being present,” a deeper awareness of our existence in time. The mindfulness I speak of is an awareness of life’s temporal nature. My intention is to evoke an awareness of mortality giving rise to feelings of gratitude and humility.

Através de uma percepção interdisciplinar, a pesquisa apresenta um quadro de contribuição para a teoria da arquitetura contemporânea que analisa relações entre conceitos, processos e representações. O trabalho investiga processos de projeto presentes na arquitetura contemporânea a partir da assimilação de três conceitos-chave: 1) diagrama, 2) dobra e 3) parâmetro; e as correspondentes traduções na arquitetura, através dos discursos e práticas de arquitetos. A pesquisa insere-se no âmbito da teoria e crítica do projeto de arquitetura e o recorte histórico está situado entre a década de 1970 até o momento, examinando as expressões projetuais e teorias de arquitetos como Peter Eisenman, Greg Lynn, Patrik Schumacher (Zaha Hadid and partners), entre outros. O problema da pesquisa é identificar de que modo o caráter conceitual experimentado pelos processos de projeto no primeiro período do recorte diagrama -, passou a intermediar uma base teórica paralela ao avanço do uso digital dobra e se modificou, no terceiro período, para enfatizar discursivamente os processos e a manipulação formal permitida pelas técnicas e tecnologias digitais avançadas parâmetro. Os objetivos são compreender os elementos dessa transição, traçar paralelismos e diferenças entre os processos, compreendendo que a história desses entrelaçamentos não é linear e cumulativa, mas atravessada por recorrências e reapropriações. Os autores foram escolhidos devido a sua produção teórica e inserção no debate internacional para os temas escolhidos, por compartilharem a absorção de teorias advindas do pós-estruturalismo de base filosófica - principalmente de Gilles Deleuze -, além de estabelecerem uma atividade projetual de caráter experimental, que permitiu à pesquisa a análise de diversos estudos de caso. / Through an interdisciplinary perception, the research presents a contribution framework for the theory of contemporary architecture that examines some relations between concepts, processes and representations. The work investigates design processes present in contemporary architecture from the assimilation of three key concepts: 1) diagram 2) fold and 3) parameter; and corresponding translations in architecture through the discourses and practices of architects. The research falls within the sphere of the theory and criticism of architecture design and the historical period is set between the 1970s up to now, examining the projective expressions and theories of architects such as Peter Eisenman, Greg Lynn, Patrik Schumacher (Zaha Hadid and partners), among others. The problem of research is to identify how the conceptual nature experienced by design processes in the first period of study - diagram - began to intermediate a parallel theoretical basis for the advancement of digital use - fold - and changed in a third period to emphasize discursively processes and formal manipulation allowed by the technical and advanced digital technologies - parameter. The objectives are understand the elements of this transition, draw parallels and differences between the processes, understanding that the history of these entanglements is not linear and cumulative, but crossed by recurrences and reappropriations. The authors were chosen due to their theoretical production and insertion in the international debate on the topics chosen, for sharing the assimilation of theories stemming from the philosophical basis of post-structuralism - especially from Gilles Deleuze - as well as established a design activity of experimental features, which allowed the analysis of several case studies.

Esta tese defende que a arte pode profanar o real ao produzir suas realidades poéticas. Ou seja: a criação artística detém a potência de destituir regimes de visibilidade, dizibilidade e pensabilidade, dando a eles novos usos e os devolvendo ao domínio dos homens. A principal questão é saber como isso ocorre. Quer dizer: quais são essas operações da arte capazes de desativar mecanismos de subjetivação ao mesmo tempo em que produzem outros? Como isso se realiza e que saberes pode-se recolher daí? Toda esta investigação parte da pintura Mapa de Lopo Homem II, de Adriana Varejão. Seguimos suas pistas na companhia de pensadores da arte, da ciência e da filosofia, com destaque para Georges Didi-Huberman, Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Rancière, Jean Baudrillard e Hal Foster, de maneira a produzir uma teoria crítica que colabore com a interpretação da arte hoje, num viés estético e político. Se parece lugarcomum dizer que a arte produz transformações culturais, o ponto desta tese é ligeiramente diferente: saber como a experiência estética pode transgredir a simbolização, fazendo irromper significados que desconstruam estruturas culturais, atentando contra a idealização da realidade em seus valores morais, econômicos, sociais, intelectuais etc. Interessa a nós o aspecto inesperado da realização artística, seu teor de insurgência, seu flerte com o esquizo. Enfim, queremos olhar para o que pode haver de destrutivo, paradoxal ou desestruturante na elaboração poética promovida pela arte visual e que resistências se levantam contra o processo. Para isso, nos inspiramos no conceito de Real lacaniano. E dizemos que a conformação artística é o mapa que se traça sobre o território numa profanação do real: sistematização ficcional e ilusória, síntese posta como realidade, representação interpretativa necessariamente parcial, insuficiente, faltosa. Que não consegue ser viva como a experiência, mas a revive, recria, interpreta, representa e reapresenta, toma-a para si e formaliza, desenha contornos, acumula camadas, esquematiza estrategicamente conforme seus próprios jogos de poder. / This thesis argues that art can desecrate the Real by producing poetic realities. This means that artistic creation has the power of deposing regimens of the visible, speakable and thinkable, of giving them new uses and of returning them to the realm of men. The main question is knowing how this happens. Which operations of art may deactivate some mechanisms of subjectivation at the same time that they produce others? How does this happen, and what knowledge can be acquired from that process? All this research originates from the painting Map of Lopo Homem II, by Adriana Varejão. We followed the paintings hints in the company of thinkers from the arts, sciences and philosophy fields, with special mention to Georges Didi-Huberman, Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Rancière, Jean Baudrillard and Hal Foster, in order to produce a critical theory that could collaborate with the interpretation of art today, in an aesthetical and political point of view. If it seems commonplace to say that art produces cultural transformations, the point of this thesis is slightly different: it is to learn how the aesthetic experience can transgress symbolization, bursting meanings that deconstruct cultural structures, attacking the idealization of reality in its moral, economic, social, intellectual values, etc. We are interested in the unexpected aspect of artistic achievement, its insurgency content, its flirtation with the schizo. We want to look at what can be destructive, paradoxical or destructuring in the poetic elaboration promoted by visual art and which resistances arise against the process. For this, we are inspired by the Lacanian concept of the Real. And we say that the artistic conformation is the map drawn on the territory in a profanation of the real: fictional and illusory systematization, synthesis put as reality, necessarily partial interpretative representation, insufficient, lacking. That cannot be alive as an experience, but revives it, recreates it, interprets it, represents it and resubmit it, takes and formalizes it, draws contours, accumulates layers and strategically schematizes according to its own power plays.

The Great Plains are prevalent among the literature of the nineteenth century, but receive hardly a single representation among the landscapes of the Hudson River School. This is certainly surprising; the public was teeming with interest in the Midwest and yet the principal landscape painters who aimed to represent and idealize a burgeoning America offered hardly a glance past the Mississippi River. This geographical silence is the result of a tension between idealistic and empirical representations of the land, one echoed in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Prairie, Washington Irving’s A Tour on the Prairies, and Margaret Fuller’s Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. Margaret Fuller’s more physical and intimate Transcendentalism unifies this tension in a manner that heralds the rise of the Luminists and the plains-scapes of Worthington Whittredge.

The primary objective of this work is to understand the importance of the indigenous, female body in early New Spain through the study of visual media from the first two centuries of colonization: specifically looking at illustrations from Book 10 (of 15) in the Florentine Codex and images of indigenous Christian wedding ceremonies such as the painted folding screen Indian Wedding and a Flying Pole (c.1690). I argue through visual, theoretical and historical analysis that regulating indigenous female sexuality was a critical component to in the creation of colonial New Spain and that imagery played an essential role in this regulatory process.

Women of color are still trapped in the colonialist trajectory of Delacroix’s sexualized Women of Algiers (1834) and alienated from the world of Sargent’s Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882) in contemporary media images that serve to exocitize, fetishize, and commodify non-white female bodies. These historical and contemporary images form a psychological weight both imposed on women of color by outside perceptions and by now-cemented internal perceptions. While women do not passively absorb media images, it cannot be ignored that the hypersexual Asian/American woman in representation “haunts the experiences and perceptions of Asian women” despite attempts to reject these images and efforts to identify empowering aspects of images of sexual power (Shimizu 2007). Ideas and expectations of sexual openness in women of color seep into our consciousness at many moments in our personal lives and cast doubt on Asian/American women’s engagements with sexuality. Resistance of and escape from objectification as an erotic racial signifier of difference are attempted through abstraction and self portraiture.

In this thesis I provide analysis of several nineteenth-century artworks in order to elucidate the connections between place and identity as expressed in visual representations of Paris. I utilize Bakhtin's idea of the dialogical as a means of identifying multiple subject positions that might be accessed by particular individuals who live in socially constructed spaces specific to fin-de-siècle Paris. I discuss the construction of three performed identities unique to nineteenth-century Paris: the Flâneur, the bohemian, and the primitivist. In each chapter I will parse out the social construction of the spaces where these identities existed and were performed, and link those identities to their discursive functions as particular models of Parisian life. I will discuss the relationship of each representation of identity to Henri Lefebvre's concept of socially-produced space through analysis of the stylistic and compositional choices made by the artist. The visual artworks I discuss include Edouard Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, Vincent van Gogh's The Outskirts of Paris, Night Café, and Café Terrace at Night, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's Jane Avril and Divan Japonais.