Experience of Antarctica is unique and overwhelming and the phenomenon of the landscape and knowledge of its history continues to inspire artists and writers. Since Antarctica's discovery and exploration both before and during the Heroic Age; explorers, expeditioners, artists and writers have attempted to record and visualise Antarctica. In1982 international Antarctic programmes started to assist artists to travel to Antarctica with the intention of providing perceptive interpretations no longer attached to science or exploration. This practice-led research is the first project where a jeweller has explored and interpreted a personal experience of Antarctica to produce souvenir and jewellery objects. These objects reveal new interpretations of Antarctica that engage with the viewer through the recognisable personal jewellery and souvenir object. This research has produced new contemporary souvenir and jewellery objects by interpreting both personal photographs and re-examining the historic stories, photographs and representations of Antarctica. The bibliographic investigations of historical jewellery and souvenirs provided specific examples of historical personal mementos that are now displayed in museums. This research analyses the meaning of historical examples of souvenirs and jewellery and examines the way in which photography has been manipulated and used on hard media. Through this analysis and examination of historical examples the research focuses on studio-based experimentation with enamelling and contemporary technologies to establish the links enamelling has had with micromosaics and miniature painting. This practice-led research investigates new and innovative ways to interpret these historical techniques and draw on the notion of the souvenir. Thinking through the processes used in this research and retelling the personal experience of Antarctica, contemporary technologies are used to reimagine historical examples of tourist jewellery and personal souvenirs presenting a further understanding of Antarctica's significance both culturally and environmentally. The research not only provides an addition to the diverse range of interpretations of Antarctica it also explores the area of enamelling in contemporary jewellery and object making by contributing to the current revival of the tradition both locally and internationally. This research offers new experiences and knowledge through the investigation, experimentation, manufacture and installation of enamelled objects.

This thesis explores the rich and provocative fields of interaction between Australian artists and museums from 1975 to 2002. Artists have investigated and engaged with museums of art, social history and natural science during this period. Despite the museum being a major source of exploration for artists, the subject has rarely been examined in the literature. This thesis redresses this gap. It identifies and examines four prevailing approaches of Australian contemporary art to museums in this period: oppositional critique, figurative representation, intervention and collaboration. / The study asserts that a general progression from oppositional critique in the seventies through to collaboration in the late nineties can be charted. It explores the work of three artists who have epitomised these approaches to the museum. Peter Cripps developed an oppositional critique of the museum and was intimately involved with the art museum politics in Melbourne during the mid-seventies. Fiona Hall figuratively represented the museum. Her approach documented and catalogued museum tropes of a bygone era. Narelle Jubelin’s work intervened with Australian museums. Her work has curatorial capacities and has had real effect within Australian museums. These differing artistic approaches to the museum have the effect of contesting history and expanding narrative within museums. / Curators collaborated with artists and used artistic methods to create exhibits in Australian museums during the 1990s. Artistic approaches are a major methodology of museums seeking to contest traditional modes of history and expand narrative in their exhibits. Contemporary art has played a vital, curatorial, role in the Hyde Park Barracks, Museum of Sydney, Melbourne Museum and Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, amongst other museums. While in earlier years artists were well known for their resistive approach to the art museum, this thesis shows that artists have increasingly participated in new forms of representation within art, social history, and natural history museums. I argue that the role of contemporary art within “new” museums is emblematic of new approaches to history, space, narrative and design within the museum. (For complete abstract open document)

<p>This study critically reviews four works of the artist Joanna Rytel with the intention to find out if and how she is provocative. In order to do that I have studied the reactions on these works, mainly through press material, which differs from letters to the editors and comments posted on discussion forums that's also been used. My conclusion is that Rytel provokes not just because of her choice of subject, but because of her concept of 'art' doesn't agree with the general public's, i.e. 'art' is supposed to be something merely beautiful. The journalists sometimes seems provoked by Rytel's ability to draw attention and have claimed that to be her main aim.</p>

This thesis aims to analyze contemporary art market in terms of auction sales carried out bySotheby’s and Christie’s in London and New York in 2007 and 2009. The study deals withinvestigating the cases when artworks’ prices exceeded their estimates. A model testing therelationships between hammer price, auction house, artist, form of art, the year of object’screation and its current owner along with the year of sale and performance of stock marketwas developed according to the theoretical framework, which includes such concepts as artobjects and their value, gatekeepers and investment and auction theories. Regression analysis revealed that the presence of a pre-lot note published in auctioncatalogue and specifying the collector putting the artwork for sale and the year of art piececreation have a significant contribution to predicting their hammer price. Moreover, theanalysis identified that paintings and sculptures typically reach high prices while drawings,watercolors and gouaches appeared to be less expensive objects. As far as the artists areconcerned, the study showed that pieces by such top artists as Andy Warhol, Jean-MichelBasquiat, Gerhard Richter, Willem de Kooning and Jeff Koons tend to achieve outstandingresults more often. The cases of over-performance were identified according to the model, which provided anopportunity to estimate predicted hammer price and compare it to the one achieved duringthe sale. Analysis did not reveal a clear pattern among over-performers, however, it can beobserved that objects sold at Sotheby’s tend to over-perform slightly more often; AndyWarhol and Damien Hirst appeared to be the artists whose artworks reach prices higherthan the estimates; and watercolors, drawings and gouaches along with sculptures, statuesand figures and photographs and prints turned out to be the over-performing forms of art.

Can the female feel at home in nature, myth and on screen, realms where she is so often laid to rest? "Pictures in an Exhibition" is a pastiche that exposes popular culture and art historical tropes in which ambiguous signifiers have become lost in a chain of referents. An installation of videos documents durational performances—filmed, edited and performed by the artist unaccompanied—that are humorous, satirical, aesthetic, historical, philosophical and psychological. Making simultaneous reference to art history, mass media, literature and mythology, "Pictures in an Exhibition" exposes the conflicted condition of a postfeminist 'self' striving to arrive at an exhibition of subjectivity.

Globalization and the advancement of technology have made the world smaller. Boundaries that define nations and nationalities have blurred and the resulting sense of displacement has undermined assumptions of identity and conversely made the search for identity more urgent. This thesis investigates the dialogue between the contemporary arts and architecture through the lens of the Filipino culture as a way to recapture and bring to the surface the contemporary identity of Filipinos and the Philippines. It proposes an understanding of history, geography and culture as a complex floating archipelago out of which our identity as individuals and nations emerge. It suggests that the events of history and the characteristics of geography are the grounds out of which art, myths and legends continue to be formed and sustain their relevance. Today, these compelling narratives emerge through the works of contemporary artists. They help us view and understand our flaws, struggles, triumphs, and future as a society in a way that speaks of our culture and time. Architecture, as a container and stage for culture must be sensitive to this artistic contemporaneity if it is to be indexical to our time. The Philippines, as a culture of hybrid and regional identities, has long struggled to make sense of the Contemporary in a largely Traditional society. The thesis proposes a new Centre for Contemporary Arts in Manila to bring the diverse artistic activities of the country into focus. It intervenes at interface between the Traditional and the Contemporary, which bridges the gap between the two, thus heralding a Cultural Renaissance and help generate a sense of contemporary nationalism.

This study departs from the observation that since the late 1980´s educational programmes for curators have been established and since then expanded greatly. The programmes are part of a process of institutionalization and professionalization of the role of the curator within the international contemporary art field where the role as such has gained much power. Even though many statements have been made about this relatively new phenomenon of curatorial studies, there is a lack of sufficient research. The intention of this study is therefore to examine the educational programmes as such. The selection of 15 programmes has been made with the purpose to include early as well as newly established and to cover a wide geographic area. The starting point has been to ask what kind of knowledge and role of the curator the programmes are given prominence to. Using Michel Foucault´s and Norman Fairclough´s theory and methods on discourses I examine the programmes as a discursive practice. The analysis shows that there is a strong coherence within the field of the programmes and certain ideals, conventions and procedures are shared among them. The programmes are highly dependent on the professional field of curators – individuals as well as institutions are frequently being invited to lecture and support the students. The application procedures make sure that students who are willing to adopt to given ideals and norms, are being accepted. Furthermore the ideal role of the curator has been defined with the following concepts – new institutionalism, an expanded working field and discursive curating. The curator is highlighted as creative, critical and independent. These concepts have been singled out and made explicitly unique for the role of the curator by the programmes although aspects have clearly been taken from the role of the artist and the critics. The result has been a stronger competition between these positions. The programmes are institutions that promote the curator as an important and irreplaceable agent and to claim even a stronger position new assets have been singled out in the form of a theoretical and academic capital.         Educational programmes included in the study: École du Magasin, Grenoble, Whitney Independent Study Program, New York, Curating Contemporary Art, Art Royal College of Art, London, De Appel Curatorial Programme, Amsterdam, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, MFA Curating, Goldsmiths, London, CuratorLab - Curatorial Program for Professionals in Arts, Crafts and Design, Konstfack, Stockholm, Curating Art - International Master Programme in Curating Art, including Management and Law, Stockholm university, Curatorial practice, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, Post-graduate Programme in Curating, Zürich University of the Arts, PhD-programme Curatorial/Knowledge, Goldsmiths, London, Cultures of the Curatorial, Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, CuMMA - Curating, Managing and Mediating Art, Aalto University, Helsinki, PhD-programme Curating, Zürich University of the Arts in collaboration with the university of Reading, Praxis Master’s Programme, Finnish Art Academy, Helsinki.

An exploration of the mythologized narratives that the work and lives of Conceptual artists Bas Jan Ader, Ana Mendieta, and Francis Alÿs have created and inspired. By virtue of their biographies, the fetishization of their personalities, and the ways in which this anecdotal information can be read in their work, mythologized narratives have been constructed, allowing for a prolonged interest existing within and without the confines of the art world. These mythologies come together as part of the oral tradition of the art world, a chronicling of narratives that incites continued interest for future generations.

<p>For more than three decades the Moscow-based conceptual artist group "Collective Actions" has been organizing actions. Each action, typically taking place at the outskirts of Moscow, is regarded as a trigger for a series of intellectual activities, such as analysis, interpretation, narration, and description. The artists have systematically recorded and transcribed these activities, collecting and assembling texts, diagrams, and photographs in a ten-volume publication entitled "Journeys Outside the City." Five volumes of this publication concern the activities of the group before, and five after, 1989. Over the years the "Journeys Outside the City" became an idiosyncratic, self-sufficient aesthetic discourse arrayed along a constellation of concepts developed by those engaged in "Collective Actions." In its elusive hermeticism and self-referentiality the aesthetic framework constructed by these artists formed a closed system, gathering bundles of signs that seldom referred to anything concrete outside the horizon of Moscow Conceptualism. It is in this regard that the early volumes of the "Journeys Outside the City" can be compared to the similarly closed ideological discourse of the Soviet Politburo. After 1989, however, with the transition from socialism to capitalism, the aesthetic and artistic language of this group began to change as its text-based self-sufficient system began to open up under pressure from new socioeconomic conditions introduced by the processes of democratization and liberalization. </p><p> My dissertation "Transition in Post-Soviet Art: `Collective Actions' Before and After 1989" is neither a history of nor a monographical work on "Collective Actions," but rather an analytical exploration of aesthetic, artistic and institutional changes that have transpired in the "Journeys Outside the City" during the transition from socialism to capitalism. As the artists migrated from one art historical category into another (from the status of "unofficial artists" to that of "contemporary artists"), their aesthetics and art revealed a series of stylistic, technical, formal, textual, and aesthetical transformations and metamorphoses that paralleled broader cultural conversions taking place in post-Soviet and Eastern European art during the transition to capitalism.</p> / Dissertation

Internship experiences in art museums can help students to compare the theories they have learned in school and the tasks in the real working place. Since the researcher is the supervisor of the interns in Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA), an appropriate internship program should be developed. Therefore, the purposes of this these are to discuss the art museums, interns and school¡¦s attitude toward internship program; to examine the internship program in MOCA; and to provide suggestions to improve internship programs. To achieve these goals, the research conducts a thorough literature review, case interviews and participant observation. MOCA and the other three public art museums are taken as examples to analyze and compare their internship programs. The opinions of MOCA¡¦s interns and the schools¡¦ teachers which cooperated with MOCA are collected. The results show that an internship program has several functions such as education, professional training, museum promotion, and interns can be part of the human resources in art museums. Though art museums provide internship programs to students and schools, they should also plan the programs according to their own characteristics and make the programs flexible to accommodate different situations. As for MOCA, it should strengthen the management of internship, let interns know their assignments and tasks precisely, and keep well communication with students. The thesis raises the following suggestions on internship: 1. Art museums should prepare internship programs to benefit both interns and museums, such as increase intern¡¦s training courses and find out specialties of interns. Furthermore, an internship database should be established in each museum as reference. 2. Interns should learn more about the museums in advance. They should have a positive attitude to learn, and evaluate their tasks and goals frequently during the internship. 3. School and museum should consider themselves as partners to arrange the internship placement properly.