This thesis examines the use and promotion of shamanic themes in contemporary Canadian Inuit art, being the principle venue in which Inuit identity is presented to non-Inuit in Canada and internationally. The image of Inuit identity promoted through the arts since the mid-twentieth century is arguably the product of non-Inuit state authorities, but Inuit artists themselves are increasingly asserting their voice in their arts and crafts, thereby challenging the image of Inuit identity to non-Inuit. This project first problematizes the history of contemporary Inuit art, where the construction of Inuit identity was heavily prescribed, and then turns to the shifts occurring in Inuit art to highlight the process of identity construction and the agency of Inuit within it. In the process, this project challenges the static conceptualization of minority identities in diverse societies by both state authorities and majority populations. This dissertation contends that Inuit art and identity are fluid concepts and there must be an emphasis made to permit for their fluidity, to avoid affirming a static minority identity in a diverse society, whether in the public or state forums. Consequently, the effort to assert the authenticity of these intangible concepts is contrary to the ideals of diversity and equality promoted in Canada.

The collection of paintings and drawings constituting the thesis exhibition The Anxious Actor are rooted within the visual language of contemporary realist figurative painting and drawing, with a focus on the male body. Traditionally in western culture, the depiction of the human form, both male and female, has sought to reinforce hierarchical constructions and meta-narratives implicit in religious and imperialistic structures. I paint and draw my own body as subject, exploring personal narratives that contradict these pre-existing notions. As a queer man interested in the vocabulary of realist figurative painting, my body is a catalyst for my fascination with stereotypic masculine portrayals.<p> Utilizing historic themes of male bravado, heroism and narcissism I juxtapose the mundane realities of everyday contemporary life. My narratives are situated within the complex visual languages of Neo-classical, Baroque, Rococo and Renaissance style painting. These specific pictorial vocabularies add both psychological and metaphoric weight to my conceptual process; locating my marginalized identity within historic and contemporary archetypes.

<p>This dissertation investigates how non-academic agents (i.e. artists, curators, and institutions) helped construct the current canon of Latin American art. It takes as case studies key exhibitions held in Brazil in order to examine how the central concepts of anthropophagy, geometric abstraction, and the political came to characterize the art of the region. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews, this work traces a local genealogy, thus offering a different starting point for understanding the Latin American art canon that has been recently institutionalized in such places as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York as part of the global turn in art history.</p><p>Citing their different language and colonial history, Brazilian artists and critics have tended to view their art production as distinct from that of the rest of the continent. This dissertation, by contrast, recognizes Brazil as a fundamental player in the shaping of both a Latin American cultural identity and an expanded notion of the Americas. This expansion of Latin American art influences how artists represent themselves and how such production is actively being inserted into collections around the world.</p> / Dissertation

An analysis of Konstvägen Sju Älvar, an exhibition of modern Nordic sculpture along a road trough the wilderness of Northern Sweden. Konstvägen is a project for public art and contemporary art in northern Sweden. The intention is to see what happens when you exhibit art alongside a road and what function it fills. By comparing the qualities of Konstvägen to the qualities of a monument Konstvägen and it’s exhibitional functions are sought to be understood.

Dailę ir muziką nuo neatmenamų laikų siejo glaudūs ryšiai. Pirmoje darbo dalyje atlikta šaltinių analizė atskleidė šių meno rūšių analogijas, kurios susiklostė Vakarų Europos istorijoje. Muziką su daile Senovėje, Viduramžiais ir Naujaisiais laikais siejo ne tik bendras meninis stilius, bet ir dažnai tokie patys filosofiniai, religiniai, estetiniai siekiniai, kurie šių menų sąlyčiui laiko tėkmėje suteikė įvairių šio bendrumo, analogijų formų. Dailė ir muzika Senovėje turėjo simbolinių sąsajų, jos jungėsi ugdymo erdvėje Viduramžiais, susilietė jas tiriančiuose moksluose Naujaisiais laikais, o postmodernioje kultūroje susijungė naujuose integruoto pobūdžio meno kūriniuose. Todėl, be istorinio dailės ir muzikos analogijų sąlygotumo, antroje darbo dalyje buvo aptartas integracinis šiuolaikinių menų pobūdis analizuojant šiuolaikinių menų sklaidą ir naujus jo pavidalus. Naujai atsiradę integruoti menai keitė ir teorinės jų analizės principus, todėl darbe jie taip pat buvo aptarti. Muziką ir dailę sujungiantys šiuolaikiniai menai bei nauji tokių menų tyrimo metodai traktuoti kaip integruoto šių menų pažinimo prielaida ir būtinybė. Trečioje darbo dalyje buvo išnagrinėta Šiuolaikinių menų programa, skirta 9–12 klasių mokiniams kaip integruoto mokymo galimybė. Šių trijų teorinių dalių pagrindu buvo atliktas empirinis tyrimas (anketinė apklausa), kuriuo buvo siekta nustatyti vidurinėse mokyklose bei gimnazijose dirbančių dailės mokytojų požiūrį į integruotą dailės ir muzikos mokymą bei... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Art and music have since time immemorial been closely related. The analysis of resources conducted in the first part of the thesis revealed analogies between these two forms of art determined in the course of the history of Western Europe. Art and music in ancient times, the medieval period, and modern times have shared not only a common artistic style, but have also usually had common philosophical, religious, and aesthetic objectives that in time resulted in various forms of affinity and analogies between these forms of art. Art and music in ancient times had symbolic associations that were combined in the area of education in the Middle Ages, came into contact in the science studying these two forms of art in modern times, and, subsequently, in postmodern culture, joined in new integrated works of art. Consequently, in addition to a historical determination of analogies between art and music, the second part of the paper discusses the integrational nature of contemporary arts, analyses the dissemination of contemporary arts, and new art forms. Newly emerged integrated arts have changed the principles of the theoretical analysis, therefore these principles are also discussed in the thesis. Contemporary arts combining music and art and new methods for the study of such arts are treated as both a premise and necessity for the integrated learning of these arts. The third part of the thesis explores the Contemporary Art Programme intended for pupils of grades 9–12 as an... [to full text]

This thesis examines the internationalization of Finnish contemporary artists. The focus is on their exhibitions at contemporary art institutions in Sweden, covering the period 2004–2013. The aim is to investigate what makes these exhibitions to materialize. The main question is: How do different actors, networks, collaborations, and the field of artistic production look like when art is exported for exhibition purposes from Finland to Sweden? Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and the Uppsala internationalization process model are used as the theoretical framework. Information is collected via interviews with three Finnish artists and three Swedish curators. The main result is that the artists do not actively impact the internationalization process themselves. Rather, the internationalization occurs through an international network of professionals, some acting on behalf of the artists, and some acting in their own interests. The main driving factor for internationalization is that the Finnish art market is small. Consequently, young contemporary artists are oriented internationally. For internationalization to occur, the artists must be available to foreign curators through the international networks. Finland is aware of this and promotes international art contacts through the foundation Frame Visual Art Finland. Important contact surfaces, where curators can learn about the artists, are art events, like European art biennials.

This thesis examines the use and promotion of shamanic themes in contemporary Canadian Inuit art, being the principle venue in which Inuit identity is presented to non-Inuit in Canada and internationally. The image of Inuit identity promoted through the arts since the mid-twentieth century is arguably the product of non-Inuit state authorities, but Inuit artists themselves are increasingly asserting their voice in their arts and crafts, thereby challenging the image of Inuit identity to non-Inuit. This project first problematizes the history of contemporary Inuit art, where the construction of Inuit identity was heavily prescribed, and then turns to the shifts occurring in Inuit art to highlight the process of identity construction and the agency of Inuit within it. In the process, this project challenges the static conceptualization of minority identities in diverse societies by both state authorities and majority populations. This dissertation contends that Inuit art and identity are fluid concepts and there must be an emphasis made to permit for their fluidity, to avoid affirming a static minority identity in a diverse society, whether in the public or state forums. Consequently, the effort to assert the authenticity of these intangible concepts is contrary to the ideals of diversity and equality promoted in Canada.

Possibly, Maybe is an exhibition of polychromatic, process-based objects made out of acrylic paint. Working with and against the limits of the material, the paint is systematically cast, peeled, and stretched colour by colour transforming it into three-dimensional hybrid forms. The working process I devise is predetermined and regulated, yet the element of chance is integral to the work due to material constraints. I explore the sculptural potential and plasticity of a material traditionally used for painting. While acrylic is a relatively new material, designed to be durable and long lasting, the forms I create out of acrylic paint are vulnerable to climate, gravity, and time and therefore counter plastic’s perceived resilience. Possibly, Maybe looks within the marginalized and the failed of our everyday, and uses these as aesthetic elements, which can constitute contemporary cultural potential. Through an engagement with the fallibility of plastic, with the hybridity of artistic practice, and the excess, opulence, and decay of the Baroque, my work plays with the paradoxes and relationships between the high and the low, pure and impure, precious and throw-away, which I find are all elements that exemplify our contemporary culture.

This thesis presents a theoretical and historical account of how artists have responded to politics of democracy since the late-1980s. Three questions guide the direction of this analysis. Firstly: why, during its apparent apotheosis in recent years, have numerous artists critiqued democracy as the political, critical and aesthetic frame within which to identify their work? Secondly: how have artists undertaken this critique? Thirdly, and most importantly: what aesthetic and political discourses have artists proposed in lieu of the democracy that they critique? Particular case studies of art from Europe help us to address these questions, for Europe has been an important crucible for vociferous, and often fraught, arguments about democracy in recent aesthetic, philosophical and political discourses. The first chapter of this thesis rigorously contextualises these discourses in relation to historical mobilisations of democracy since the Iron Curtain??s collapse. Relying on writings by Pat Simpson, Slavoj ??i??ek, Alain Badiou and Mario Tronti, I chart the significant imbrications of political ideology, philosophy and what I call ??aesthetics of democratisation?? from the end of European communism, through the democratisations of postcommunism to the militarised democratisations of Iraq and Afghanistan after 2001. Notions of democracy shift and change during this period, becoming what ??i??ek calls a problematic ??transcendental guarantee?? of assumed values and self-legitimation. These shifting values in turn propel the concurrent critiques of democracy that are the subjects of the five subsequent chapters: Ilya Kabakov??s ??total?? installations; Neue Slowenische Kunst??s mimicry of the nation-state during the 1990s; Thomas Hirschhorn??s large-scale works from the late-1990s onwards; Christoph B??chel and Gianni Motti??s collaborative ventures; and the co-operative practices of Dan and Lia Perjovschi. Through examination of the artists?? installations and voluminous writings, and based primarily on archival research and interviews, this thesis examines how their aesthetic politics emerge from the remobilisation of nonconformist art histories, through self-instituted contexts and alternative models for art production, exhibition and interpretation. These models, I argue, counter our usual understandings of art practice and its politics in Europe. They cumulatively assert ??postsocialist aesthetics?? as an impertinent, yet urgent, prism through which to analyse contemporary art.

This paper examines nostalgia in photo-poetry book Nostos, and nostalgia’s existence as a theoretical global condition arising from displacement, looking at nostalgia specifically not as a yearning for home, but a yearning for a lost sense of feeling at home. It traces the lineage of image-text hybrid art practices and examines the significance of conveying meaning through both synergistically. It studies the psychoanalytic process of transforming loss into object, or absence into presence, ultimately using the object as a lens to view oneself and the way in which nostalgia manifests itself.