Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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This written and visual research project sets out to consider how the notion of opacity marks photographs of environmental despoliation. It argues that opacity can be a critically potent framework...Show moreThis written and visual research project sets out to consider how the notion of opacity marks photographs of environmental despoliation. It argues that opacity can be a critically potent framework in photographic practices that engage with the ecological crisis by means of its construction of more affective modes of communicating a phenomenon that is itself often marked by incomprehensibility. In doing so, it conducts a comparative visual analysis of two photographic series: Anthropocene by Edward Burtynsky and Oil and Moss by Igor Tereshkov. It concludes that Burtynsky’s series constructs an awesome visuality that pursues a revelatory approach but, in actuality, ends up reasserting a set of beliefs that are already widely known, consequently not inciting new, critical modes of contemplating the ecological crisis. Tereshkov’s work, on the other hand, works to recombine the aesthetic with the critical; focusing on the interactions between the images’ visuality and their tactility, this thesis argues that Oil and Moss’ critical potency is established by means of its destabilising, disruptive aesthetics of the opaque. The ecological crisis is also a crisis of imagination: as humans, we struggle to grasp and make sense of the scale and severity of the devastation that appears to be creeping closer and closer. As such, we are in need of new, innovative modes of imagining our physical environments and how we relate to them. Photography, in its simultaneous ability to remember the past, to contemplate the future, and to imagine alternative iterations of the present, is one itinerary through which that may be achieved.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
Neoliberalism has altered the way in which the subject consumes and subsequently reflects upon media. A popular media genre on the internet nowadays is instruction videos, which can be consumed for...Show moreNeoliberalism has altered the way in which the subject consumes and subsequently reflects upon media. A popular media genre on the internet nowadays is instruction videos, which can be consumed for various reasons, but usually rely on the notion of conveying to the viewer a certain set of skills. Since these media are therefore consumed for a specific purpose intended, the viewer already pre-establishes a certain attitude and understanding, and furthermore gains a reflective understanding of this phenomenon itself. This thesis aims to reconsider the notion of spectatorship through a lens of phenomenology, in order to reevaluate the idea of a spectator's own understanding of their experience of a medium, which this thesis names "cognitive spectatorship," and shows how the genre of instruction videos and this new viewing attitude play into the Neoliberal ideology.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
under embargo until 2024-08-31
2024-08-31T00:00:00Z
The topic I discuss in this work is that of the practices of collecting and exhibiting of Orientalia at the turn of the Early-Modern period in Europe. In particular, I focus on the setting up of...Show moreThe topic I discuss in this work is that of the practices of collecting and exhibiting of Orientalia at the turn of the Early-Modern period in Europe. In particular, I focus on the setting up of rooms dedicated to the showcasing of goods coming from the Orient and analyse how the exhibiting practices altered the perception of the Orient in the European societies of that period. The main research question upon which this whole work is hinged is: how did the collecting and exhibiting practices of Orientalia change in Western society during the Early-Modern period, to what degree can the evolution of these practices be seen as a way for Westerners to familiarise with the Orient, and with what consequences for the understanding of the Orient in European Early-Modern society? In order to find an answer to this question, the analysis I propose here is devoted to the study of several objects, spaces and practices, not only from a historical but also theoretical perspective. The central case study of this work is the Rijksmuseum Lacquer Room (assembled in Leeuwarden at the end of the 17th century). However, this study takes its steps from an analysis of the way Orientalia were treated during the Middle Age and Late Renaissance and surveys the shift which took place during the Early-Modern period and the reasons behind it. Such a historical analysis takes place in the first two chapters of this work, where I first focus on Europe in general and then specifically to the case of the Early-Modern Netherlands. The last two chapters of this work are instead dedicated to a discussion linked to the theoretical aspects regarding the collections of Orientalia and their showcasing in Oriental-style Rooms. In particular, I focus on the concepts of domestication and on the agency of objects, and later on issues related to Orientalism and that of collecting as a gendered practice. Starting from this analysis I propose further insights on the conception of the Orient in the context of Early-Modern Netherlands and suggest new prompts for future research.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis explores how composting can be a fruitful practice and concept in contemporary art. Current artistic practices resonate with the planetary problems that arise when people tend to feel...Show moreThis thesis explores how composting can be a fruitful practice and concept in contemporary art. Current artistic practices resonate with the planetary problems that arise when people tend to feel disconnected from soil. There is an increasing awareness that soil is not merely dirt but is in fact essential for human and other life forms on Earth; still, the understanding of soil as a resource prevails. Composting is one way to counter soil-exhausting systems, such as industrial agriculture, and work towards a soil-nourishing approach since composting is the transformative decomposition of organic waste into nutrient-rich humus. Composting offers a means of caring for and relating to soil instead of disconnecting from it. Material and speculative facets of composting can be observed in art and enable to expand and review the agricultural practice and understanding of composting. The material and speculative qualities of artworks can urge a reconsideration of human relations with earth, soil and our planet, by making them sensible and imaginable. Therefore, the question that guides this thesis is as follows: how can we humans re-imagine our relationships with earth through material and speculative forms of composting in contemporary art? Composting entails a web of interdependent relations between humans and many non-human actors, such as microorganisms and the environment. In her book Staying with the Trouble (2016), the feminist biologist and philosopher Donna Haraway engages with this idea of composting in a metaphorical way to imagine the world as one big compost pile. Hence, it is in this composting world that humans must learn other ways to be part of planet Earth’s web of relations. The material aspects of composting in art are examined primarily on the basis of the exhibition M for Membrane (2020) by the artist TJ Shin at the Wave Hill Public Garden & Cultural Center in New York City. The speculative possibilities of composting are mainly investigated through the artwork Untilled (2012) by the artist Pierre Huyghe at dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany. In dialogue with complementary theories, the analyses of contemporary artworks aim to develop ways to replenish Haraway’s concept of composting and substantiate the idea that art can be fertile soil for a flourishing world: art as humus.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
2022-08-31T00:00:00Z
How can you conceptualise a multi-layered and chronologically dense case study in its entirety without losing focus on the parts, and vice versa? This methodological problem lies at the heart of...Show moreHow can you conceptualise a multi-layered and chronologically dense case study in its entirety without losing focus on the parts, and vice versa? This methodological problem lies at the heart of this thesis, in which the seventeenth-century Roman church of Domine Quo Vadis will be used as a case study. Using a palimpsestic framework, this thesis sets out to explore the historical and material dimensions of the Domine Quo Vadis while also acknowledging its status as a mediator of the divine.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
closed access
This thesis investigates various self-portraits by women artists that stand in relation to the structures of the art historical canon: Autoritratto (1969), a book posing as a self-portrait,...Show moreThis thesis investigates various self-portraits by women artists that stand in relation to the structures of the art historical canon: Autoritratto (1969), a book posing as a self-portrait, composed by art critic and radical feminist Carla Lonzi (1931-1982); the painting Self-portrait as Tahitian (1937), made by Indian-Hungarian artist Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941) in Paris, and the photograph Lady in Moonlight (2004) by contemporary Indian artist Pushpamala N. (b. 1956) in collaboration with British photographer Clare Arni (b. 1962); and the interpretations and translations of self-portraits of Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) or “mythic Frida”. These case studies occupy different places on the axes of art historical canonicity: ranging from how a self-portrait attempts to deconstruct canonical structures (Autoritratto), to how citations can show the stage of production of the canonical (Self-portrait as Tahitian and Lady in Moonlight), to how canonical structures approach the most famous self-portraits by a woman artist (mythic Frida). I stage a conversation between these diverging practices of self-portraiture and the dynamics of canonisation they elucidate, and ask how positionings of Self and Other, inside and outside, guide this relationship. Ultimately I argue that the shifting positions of Self and Other are emphasised and mobilised to shape the relations between these self-portraits by women artists and the canon. These positions are assembled in order to reach varying effects: 1) to deconstruct hierarchical art discourse by shaping the Self through Others in order to generate horizontality, and by positioning the art critic inside to attempt a move outside of the canon (Autoritratto); 2) to bodily perform the canon’s gendered structures through a double bind position in which the artist is placed simultaneously in- and out-side the canon, and positing not only the Self as Other, inherent to any self-portraiture, but also the Other as Self (Self-portrait as Tahitian and Lady in Moonlight); 3) to prevent ‘Others’ to the canon from becoming canonical in a universal sense, as when self-portraits by a woman artist enter inside the canon the Self and the private sphere are overemphasised (mythic Frida).Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
closed access
The colossal statue of Fridtjov the Bold, donated to the Norwegian people by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1913, can be described as excessive in many ways - from an art historical perspective, because of...Show moreThe colossal statue of Fridtjov the Bold, donated to the Norwegian people by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1913, can be described as excessive in many ways - from an art historical perspective, because of its melodramatic stance, and from the perspective of anthropology because of its transgression of gifting norms. The statue also raises the question of the power of the German discourse of the North, which, I claim, had similarities with the Foucaultian discourse described by Said in Orientalism. In this thesis all these forms of excess are explored and an answer is attempted at the question why the Kaiser created the statue.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
closed access
This thesis investigates the art movement Arte Povera through the lens of the Grotesque as an approach to openness. The Arte Povera movement is scrutinized first by a close-reading of the texts and...Show moreThis thesis investigates the art movement Arte Povera through the lens of the Grotesque as an approach to openness. The Arte Povera movement is scrutinized first by a close-reading of the texts and exhibitions by art critic and founding father of the movement Germano Celant, after which the thesis turns to the Grotesque as analytical tool to understand Arte Povera’s inherent contradictions as a form of social anarchy. The Grotesque is proposed as a way to openness, a notion taken from Umberto Eco’s study Opera Aperta. As such, this thesis presents new readings of Arte Povera; of the artworks and actions as well as the critical and curatorial endeavors of Celant that have informed these.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis explores how a portable DNA lab (Bento Lab) can affect social ties between humans and objects. How do we perceive DNA research outside of the institutional realm? With script analysis...Show moreThis thesis explores how a portable DNA lab (Bento Lab) can affect social ties between humans and objects. How do we perceive DNA research outside of the institutional realm? With script analysis as the research method, I study the inscribed, subscribed and exhibited capacities of the Bento Lab and how each of these contexts affects the social. The social being the people and objects that are gathered in the momentum in which DNA research is used, or discussed. Throughout the study, it becomes clear that one object can have a large impact on how we, as humans, perceive DNA research and all of its ethical implications.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
At the beginning of the early twentieth century, various photographic societies were established such as the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring in England and de Nederlandse Club voor FotoKunst in the...Show moreAt the beginning of the early twentieth century, various photographic societies were established such as the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring in England and de Nederlandse Club voor FotoKunst in the Netherlands, who profiled themselves as artists and promoted photography as a fine art. It is often argued that they solely produced images to evoke emotions or atmosphere, and that they exclusively looked back at painting styles to reach for the ultimate goal of including photography as a fine art. Moreover, the photographs are mainly described on the basis of art historical categories, techniques, or the biographies of the photographers. I argue that these perspectives neglect the crucial fact that the photographs are photographs, and that new perspectives are needed. Therefore, this research will take a more theoretical approach, by focussing on early Dutch photography from 1913-1927, the medium of photography, and the photo-theoretical concepts of light, straight and composed photography, and time. In this research, the focus will specifically be on two seemingly different photographs: a photograph which looks like a seventeenth-century genre painting by Richard Polak and a cameraless photogram by Henri Berssenbrugge. In this analysis, the attention will be aimed on the fact that these photographs are photographs, by moving to the heart of the medium, and eventually highlighting that within this core, the boundaries are blurred. By combining the earliest theories of photography, with more modern and contemporary arguments considering the medium, new perspectives on the two photographs will be provided, which gives revived attention to the neglected or forgotten early Dutch photography. By taking a different perspective, it is shown that the photographs are more than the reproduction of paintings, or more than just another painterly technique for creating figurative and abstract painting.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
A study to the relation between the reputation of William of Orange and portrait prints for 1584-1702. I researched the changes in the reputation of the prince in this period, the different ways he...Show moreA study to the relation between the reputation of William of Orange and portrait prints for 1584-1702. I researched the changes in the reputation of the prince in this period, the different ways he was depicted in portraits and the iconography and texts on the cartouches of the portrait prints.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis analyzes the rhetoric of the Van Gogh Museum and exposes its communicative strategies holistically. An extensive and multi-faceted analysis on the persuasive character of the Rietveld...Show moreThis thesis analyzes the rhetoric of the Van Gogh Museum and exposes its communicative strategies holistically. An extensive and multi-faceted analysis on the persuasive character of the Rietveld building, the Kurokawa wing, and modern media shows that the communicative strength of the Van Gogh Museum is situated in its awareness of different audiences, their varying needs, and plural museum experiences. In a museum landscape where collection-oriented purposes are increasingly shared with public-oriented functions, the only way through which the museum is able to exert and preserve its expertise is by catering to its audiences. Revealing the rhetorical strategies behind the VGM’s communication results in an awareness that the postmodern museum is capable of transforming its commercial activities into valuable dialogues, in which the visitor is treated as an equal, active, and indispensable participant. Commercial museological practices do not threaten the educative value of the museum but carry the potential to actively encourage inclusivity and accessibility. The VGM emits this message in all of its inherently communicative elements.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
The Jarves Collection, the first collection of early Italian art in the United States, was created by James Jackson Jarves (1818-1888) in Florence in the 1850s, and brought to the USA in 1860...Show moreThe Jarves Collection, the first collection of early Italian art in the United States, was created by James Jackson Jarves (1818-1888) in Florence in the 1850s, and brought to the USA in 1860 hoping to create a “Free Gallery of Art.” Jarves presents medieval and Renaissance Florence as a democratic and religious model for the United States to emulate. The collection thus performed an educational function, literally carrying civilization – in the form of early Italian paintings – to the United States. Considering Jarves’s role within the history of American collecting and reception of Italian art, publications have focused on placing Jarves within the American history of collecting, while giving little thought to underlying structures in Jarves’s motivations and actions in assembling and promoting his collection. As Jarves presents history as a didactic and emancipatory model for the United States, this thesis asks what his stake was in presenting early Italian art as the model of civilization. Limited to the period from the early 1850s, when Jarves starts collecting, until 1871, when the collection was sold to Yale University, this thesis focuses on Jarves’s motivations, placed within contemporary trends. It is split into three parts: the first looks at the underlying structures that influenced the make-up of the collection; the second looks at Jarves's ideas as expressed through his writings, and at their connection to his collection. The final part looks at the Jarves's main aim for his collection: the creation of a national gallery of art for the education of the American public.Show less
