Peggy Guggenheim belongs to the essential collectible figures of the 20th century art. She has created a unique art collection during her lifetime and she has opened up new artistic movements (in particular Abstract art) by organizing exhibitions, debates and by publishing catalogues in which she participated. She was active in many art projects and she had friendship among many after-war modern artists. Her collection included front works of Cubism, Futurism, Metaphysical art, Abstract art, Surrealism and Avantgard sculpture. Peggy moved to the Venetian palace Venier dei Leoni in 1949, where she was living following thirty years. Today her extensive collection is opened to public under the patronage of Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The Diploma thesis "Peggy Guggenheim in a Cultural-Political Picture of her Time" will outline Peggy Guggenheim's life in context of emerging modern art (particularly American art) and her diverse activities which were connected with it. Furthermore it will focus on culture-political context of post-war time and finally it will evaluate her contribution to evolution of abstract art and its approach to the general public.

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Philosophy, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-56).

This thesis examines how context in Derridean signature theory is taboo and underutilized, and calls signature theory to embrace the contaminating mark of context. Signature theory, as proposed by Jacques Derrida and Peggy Kamuf, offers a mere glimpse into Romanticism’s strained relationship with the signature, with a close reading limited to Rousseau. This thesis widens the scope of existing signature scholarship, and expands the context of the signature by focusing on a variety of signatures, events and contexts to reveal that the slipperiness of the signature is a pervasive problem, irreducible to simply just Rousseau. This thesis does not involve a return to the origin, or a search for origins; Part I is a return to the period which Derridean signature theory investigates, in an attempt to interrogate Derrida, Kamuf, and the signature itself; expanding the concept of the signature through its various manifestations of handwork and linework, and weaving together a more complicated, contaminated, and ultimately convincing context for signature theory to begin (again) from. Part II forces signature theory to begin again by putting it into practice. Here, I take Kamuf to task for her failure to fully ‘contract’ the signature. She completely ignores the physical dimension of the word ‘contract.’ Going one step further than simply critiquing her signature practices, I ‘contract’ the signature by having Derrida’s signature tattooed on my body. The tattoo and its location comment on the current limitations of signature theory, and perhaps of academic practice generally; of contracting without touching, and fearing contexts.

This thesis examines how context in Derridean signature theory is taboo and underutilized, and calls signature theory to embrace the contaminating mark of context. Signature theory, as proposed by Jacques Derrida and Peggy Kamuf, offers a mere glimpse into Romanticism’s strained relationship with the signature, with a close reading limited to Rousseau. This thesis widens the scope of existing signature scholarship, and expands the context of the signature by focusing on a variety of signatures, events and contexts to reveal that the slipperiness of the signature is a pervasive problem, irreducible to simply just Rousseau. This thesis does not involve a return to the origin, or a search for origins; Part I is a return to the period which Derridean signature theory investigates, in an attempt to interrogate Derrida, Kamuf, and the signature itself; expanding the concept of the signature through its various manifestations of handwork and linework, and weaving together a more complicated, contaminated, and ultimately convincing context for signature theory to begin (again) from. Part II forces signature theory to begin again by putting it into practice. Here, I take Kamuf to task for her failure to fully ‘contract’ the signature. She completely ignores the physical dimension of the word ‘contract.’ Going one step further than simply critiquing her signature practices, I ‘contract’ the signature by having Derrida’s signature tattooed on my body. The tattoo and its location comment on the current limitations of signature theory, and perhaps of academic practice generally; of contracting without touching, and fearing contexts.

Thesis (M.A. (Drama)) - Rhodes University, 2009. / A half-thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Drama.

This thesis will focus on two similarly positioned characters: Peggy Olson and Leslie Knope, both of whom are female characters who successfully navigate male-dominated workplaces. Using Bonnie Dow’s lifestyle feminist framework and critique of postfeminism, Sheryl Sandberg’s advice for women who wish to succeed in the workplace, and bell hooks feminist theory, I hope to use this thesis to locate Peggy and Leslie’s respective places in the tradition of feminism on television, and I will argue that describing characters like Peggy as “feminist” is outdated.

This project examines contemporary performances that disrupt normative understandings of time/history. I argue that the complimentary regimes of heterosexuality and capitalism produce the temporal logics that create the psychic and material conditions under which U.S. queer subjects experience everyday, national, and transnational trauma. These logics include the construction of time/history as linear, teleological, and progress-oriented, and the idealized citizen as similarly straight, productive, and amnesic. I then analyze the ways in which queer performance can resist and transform chrono-normativity by creating "time slips": worlds in which past and present are given permission to touch; history/memory to repeat; and the future to reside in the now. Case studies include Ann Carlson and Mary Ellen Strom's Geyser Land (2003); floodlines (2004-2010), which I conceived and directed; and Peggy Shaw and The Clod Ensemble's Must: The Inside Story (2011). I situate my analysis against the backdrop of a post-9/11 security state that makes these performative disruptions particularly vital at this historical moment. / text

This thesis is an exploration of some of the defining characteristics of performance art, and an investigation of how such characteristics relate to ritual. It highlights some key notions, such as that of the “Real” and the live, which are introduced in the first chapter. This chapter explores the theories of Peggy Phelan, Julia Kristeva and Jacques Lacan in its attempts to conceptualize the Real. It assesses how performance art as ritual attempts to revise traditional apparatuses of representation. It argues that, through a transgression of representation, performance art has the potential to challenge and revise established discourses on identity, culture and violence. The second chapter of this study is an attempt to provide a history and subsequent conceptualization of performance art, based on its exposition of the live. I have taken into consideration certain strategies that performance artists employ to evoke the live, referring specifically to the manipulation of the body. It is through abject encounters with the unsymbolizable “Real” that the performance artist reaches the borders of his/her subjective constitution, and performs a transformation of his/her identity that transcends the mechanisms of representation. The third chapter of this study attempts to find the connections that exist between performance art and sacrificial ritual. I will refer specifically to the theories of Rene Girard. Girard‟s notion of the “violent sacred” and its significance within sacrifice as an antidote to community crises will be explored in relation to collective transformation within the performance event. I choose to focus specifically on the role of the performer as surrogate victim/pharmakon, and the spectators/witnesses as part of the community. The fourth chapter explores how two South African performance artists, Steven Cohen (1961) and Peter van Heerden (1973), perform the abject body as the monster. Kristeva‟s notion of the abject will be examined in terms of the transformation of the individual performer as subject within performance art, and how, through the assumption of an “othered,” monstrous identity, the performer becomes the surrogate victim. The fifth chapter will entail an examination of Peter van Heerden‟s 6 Minutes. I will attempt to draw parallels between performance art and ritual through using this performance piece as a case study. I will focus on the strategies that Van Heerden implements to resist theatrical representation. 6 Minutes will be observed in terms of its link to sacrificial ritual, and it presentation of the live, and the Real. In light of these discoveries, I aim to locate performance art within politically-driven modes of art-making, and how such an endeavour relates to South African modes of theatre and performance.

In this essay I analyze the performative aspects relating to Marina Abramović's The Artist Is Present, which took place in spring 2010 at MoMA in New York, from the context of the artist and work, institution and documentation. In this performance work, for the duration of the exhibition, Abramović sits completely still opposite another chair where anyone from the audience may sit. The art arises through this participation. The audience are not only viewers, but also the observed, thus becoming part of the work and the negotiation of this exchange of living gazes. The performative pervades this work on multiple levels. The Artist Is Present reached a surprisingly large public, of over 500,000 visitors and continues to circulate in the form of blogs, documentary film and photography long after the exhibition duration. In order to conduct a performative analysis of The Artist Is Present I apply the theories of Peggy Phelan, regarding the relationships between the political and representative visibility in contemporary culture. Phelan's explanation of the unmarked field reveals the importance of the 'other' to see oneself. This is especially relevant in Abramović's performance which challenges and revolves around self reflection in the other. Phelan's theories are also pertinent in analyzing what Abramović as the performer and her work create for re-negotiations around positions and the gaze. The assertions of Carol Duncan in considering the Art Museum as a place of ritual are applied to the ritualistic context of The Artist Is Present, which may well build up a form of liminality. Duncan's claims of the museum as ritual in combination with Phelan's theories provide interesting grounds to further investigate the effect and eventual mythology of the performance work and artist. How do these contexts of institution, documentation, artist and art, which I propose contribute to a kind of myth creation, operate in a ritualized performance art work? This essay analyses these contexts together in order to find a connection between the performative aspects and the effect that they have on the viewer and receiver, which have contributed to the public success of this exhibition. Despite that we now live in an era of reproduction, perhaps the wishes of our era still revolve around a cult value? That even in this post industrial age of reproduction, new needs are recreated for mythology and cult? Or can it be that the reverse is true, that the rites and symbols speak to us before the mythology has fully arisen?

Marguerite “Peggy” Guggenheim is best known for her legacy of collecting modern art in both Europe and the United States, but scholars have overlooked her importance as a patron of modern architecture, specifically the exhibition spaces that showcased her art collection. This thesis fills the gap of literature by tracing the architectural history of the collection. Guggenheim represented a catalyst for bridging the role of art and architecture by promoting modern art through three different spatial approaches: creating collaborative and didactic gallery workspaces at Galerie Guggenheim Jeune in London (1938-1939), establishing architectural spaces that employed unique display techniques at Art of This Century in New York (1942-1948), and instituting a final home-museum at Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice (1949-present). Through the use of primary sources, such as Guggenheim’s autobiography, archival sources including familial correspondences, original black and white photographs, newspaper articles, and architectural drawings, I resituate Guggenheim as not only an art patron and collector, but also a benefactor of modern architectural spaces. / text