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  • A Golden Artist: Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt’s Life and Art During the Stonewall Era

    Document thumbnail: A Golden Artist: Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt’s Life and Art During the Stonewall Era
    Type:
    Document
    Description/Abstract:
    This paper explores queer artist Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt (b. 1948) and his piece titled Allegory of the Stonewall Riot (Statue of Liberty Fighting for Drag Queen, Husband, and Home) (1969). I take a biographical approach to the paper, dissecting Lanigan-Schmidt’s childhood and young adult life living as a queer street kid in the 1960s. I follow him to New York City, where he continued creating his kitsch style art and started getting recognized for it. Outside of his artistic endeavors, Lanigan-Schmidt would catch himself hanging out at The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street. In the early hours of June 28, 1969, The Stonewall Inn was unexpectedly raided by the police. At a time when being queer was criminalized, the patrons of Stonewall had had enough and fought back against the police, sparking a riot that turned into a weeks-long protest. Lanigan-Schmidt was in attendance that night and joined the fight for gay liberation. It was this night that inspired his creation, Allegory of the Stonewall Riot (Statue of Liberty Fighting for Drag Queen, Husband, and Home). By analyzing the contextual importance of The Stonewall Inn and the riots that ensued, I show how Allegory of the Stonewall Riot reflects queer life in the 1960s. In the art historical canon, queer art is largely underrepresented. However, in this paper I show how Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt and Allegory of the Stonewall Riot deserve a place in the art historical canon
    Creator/Author:
    Turner, Lauren
    Submitter:
    Lauren Turner
    Date Uploaded:
    04/27/2026
    Date Modified:
    04/28/2026
    Date Created:
    2026-04-27
    License:
    CC0 1.0 Universal

  • Ethical Implications in Marina Abramović’s "Rhythm 0"

    Student Work thumbnail: Ethical Implications in Marina Abramović’s "Rhythm 0"
    Type:
    Student Work
    Description/Abstract:
    “In my opinion, wherever there is a public, there is a sacred place. When there is no public, there is no performance because there is no dialogue,” claimed Marina Abramović (b. 1946) in conversation with Italian art critic and contemporary art historian Achille Bonito Oliva. For Abramović, the presence of an audience is constitutive to performance. Performance art has frequently been defined by its provocative impulse, functioning as a responsive and unstable form that artists have turned to when engaging with political, cultural, or social pressures, and when seeking to unsettle the conventions of more established artistic disciplines. These sentiments are conveyed by her first performance works, The Rhythm Series (1973-1974). Over the course of two years, she completed five separate performances that explored the physical limits of the body and the relationship between performer and audience. Abramović performed Rhythm 0 (1974), the fifth and final work, at the gallery Studio Morra in Naples, Italy, from 8 pm to 2 am. She placed seventy-two objects on a table that could cause the human body extreme pleasure or pain, including but not limited to objects like a comb, lipstick, paint, a feather, a bone of lamb, cake, and a gun. Instructions posted on the wall declared: “I am the object. During this period I take full responsibility.” This experiment used the art space to expose what audiences are capable of when social inhibition is suspended and moral responsibility is left unguided. This paper asks, in her performance Rhythm 0, how does Abramović's deliberate surrender of bodily agency transforms the audience from passive observers into ethically implicated subjects, forcing an intersubjective encounter with the artist that exposes unconventional, if not revolutionary, social conditions governing the art space?
    Creator/Author:
    Penix, Sadie
    Submitter:
    Sadie Penix
    Date Uploaded:
    04/26/2026
    Date Modified:
    04/30/2026
    Date Created:
    2026-04
    License:
    CC0 1.0 Universal

  • Ethical Implications in Marina Abramović’s "Rhythm 0"

    Document thumbnail: Ethical Implications in Marina Abramović’s "Rhythm 0"
    Type:
    Document
    Description/Abstract:
    “In my opinion, wherever there is a public, there is a sacred place. When there is no public, there is no performance because there is no dialogue,” claimed Marina Abramović (b. 1946) in conversation with Italian art critic and contemporary art historian Achille Bonito Oliva. For Abramović, the presence of an audience is constitutive to performance. Performance art has frequently been defined by its provocative impulse, functioning as a responsive and unstable form that artists have turned to when engaging with political, cultural, or social pressures, and when seeking to unsettle the conventions of more established artistic disciplines. These sentiments are conveyed by her first performance works, The Rhythm Series (1973-1974). Over the course of two years, she completed five separate performances that explored the physical limits of the body and the relationship between performer and audience. Abramović performed Rhythm 0 (1974), the fifth and final work, at the gallery Studio Morra in Naples, Italy, from 8 pm to 2 am. She placed seventy-two objects on a table that could cause the human body extreme pleasure or pain, including but not limited to objects like a comb, lipstick, paint, a feather, a bone of lamb, cake, and a gun. Instructions posted on the wall declared: “I am the object. During this period I take full responsibility.” This experiment used the art space to expose what audiences are capable of when social inhibition is suspended and moral responsibility is left unguided. This paper asks, in her performance Rhythm 0, how does Abramović's deliberate surrender of bodily agency transforms the audience from passive observers into ethically implicated subjects, forcing an intersubjective encounter with the artist that exposes unconventional, if not revolutionary, social conditions governing the art space?
    Creator/Author:
    Penix, Sadie
    Submitter:
    Sadie Penix
    Date Uploaded:
    04/26/2026
    Date Modified:
    04/27/2026
    Date Created:
    2026-04
    License:
    CC0 1.0 Universal

  • The Language of the Self: Rejecting the Surrealist focus on Psychoanalysis in Leonora Carrington’s Self-Portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse)

    Article thumbnail: The Language of the Self: Rejecting the Surrealist focus on Psychoanalysis in Leonora Carrington’s Self-Portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse)
    Type:
    Article
    Description/Abstract:
    This project will explore the artist Leonora Carrington’s Self-portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse, ca. 1937-38) and its relationship to and rejection of the male-centric, sexist ideology of psychoanalysis that governed the Surrealist movement. As outlined in Andre Breton's First Manifesto of Surrealism (1924), Freudian psychoanalysis had a great influence on Breton, the movement's founder (1896-1966). He believed in Freud's tenets and theories regarding dreams and the unconscious as a liberating and radical force that could tear down society’s systems of oppression. Yet there is a willful ignorance in Breton’s philosophy on the deep-rooted misogyny of Freud’s psychology and how the institution of psychoanalysis ignores the realities of female development and existence within inherently sexist societal structures of that period. However, Leonora Carrington rejected psychoanalytic theory as it pertained to her art. She refused to be categorized within sexist ideologies and asserted herself as a creative artist with her own interpretations of her work, positing her own ideologies in the process. She demonstrated her identity through her work and found liberation by developing her own feminist consciousness. Through researching Carrington's work, I want to expand on her ability to challenge the sexist paradigms of Surrealism and to reaffirm how her rejection demonstrates that female nonconformity is not only revolutionary but also necessary for female artistic freedom today. Other scholars have delved into this driving aspect of Carrington’s work but I will be utilizing Helene Cixous’ concept of “ecritutre feminine” in order to demonstrate how Carrington developed a “pictorial language” of her own within her work Self-Portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse). I will use Cixous’ seminal work, "The Laugh of the Medusa," to expand on this idea and how Carrington developed that language, constituted of her own personal symbols, which is on full display in her self-portrait.
    Creator/Author:
    Morriss, Ella
    Submitter:
    Ella Morriss
    Date Uploaded:
    04/26/2026
    Date Modified:
    04/26/2026
    Date Created:
    2026-04-27
    License:
    CC0 1.0 Universal

  • Saints and Sons: Painting Power, Piety, and the Performance of Nobility in Zurbarán’s Saint Peter Nolasco Recovering the Image of the Virgin of El Puig.

    Article thumbnail: Saints and Sons: Painting Power, Piety, and the Performance of Nobility in Zurbarán’s Saint Peter Nolasco Recovering the Image of the Virgin of El Puig.
    Type:
    Article
    Description/Abstract:
    The young boy in Francisco de Zurbarán’s (1598-1664) Saint Peter Nolasco Recovering the Image of the Virgin of El Puig (1630) has been suggested to be either Zurbarán’s son, Juan de Zurbarán (1620–1649), or the son of James I of Aragon, Alfonso of Castile (1229–1260). Despite visual dominance, most scholars do not address the boy, and those who do offer conflicting identifications. This paper bridges the gap between these varying opinions, and concretely identifies the most formally important figure in this commission that defined Zurbarán’s career. The argument is built on the writings of Zurbarán scholar Martin S. Soria, as well as a comparison to Zurbarán’s body of work at large, primarily his tendency to create from life, and his suspected self-portrait, The Crucified Christ with a Painter (1650). I conclude that the child in the piece is likely a culmination of Juan and Alfonso and explore the implication of Zurbarán depicting his child in the noble and pious role of James the Conqueror’s son, paying witness to the rediscovery of the Virgin of El Puig. The combined figure of Juan and Alfonso gains significance through an exploration of historical context surrounding the legend of the Virgin of El Puig and its key figures. By drawing parallels between 17th-century Spanish colonialism contemporary to Zurbarán’s time and 13th-century Reconquista depicted in the painting, Zurbarán uses this composite figure to assert a vision of his lineage as triumphant and divinely favoured. Ultimately, this paper continues and expands upon Soria’s writings on the subject, and places Zurbarán within a Baroque tradition of artists, such as Velázquez, who used painting to assert their profession as divinely-inspired, nobel, and distinct from craftsmen.
    Creator/Author:
    Krimmer, Ruby
    Submitter:
    Ruby Krimmer
    Date Uploaded:
    04/28/2025
    Date Modified:
    04/28/2025
    Date Created:
    April 25, 2025
    License:
    All rights reserved

  • Fashioning the Cloisters: A Reflection on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Exhibition Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination

    Student Work thumbnail: Fashioning the Cloisters: A Reflection on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Exhibition Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination
    Type:
    Student Work
    Description/Abstract:
    The exhibition "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination," staged by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Fashion Institute, showcased a fusion of Catholic iconography with contemporary fashion. The exhibition served as an immersive experience within the Met Cloisters, blending architecture, artworks, and garments to elevate clothing to the status of art. Attire was transformed into an earnest expression of spirituality and cultural identity through thematic organization. "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" exemplifies the potential of fashion as a medium for artistic exploration and cultural discourse, challenging conventional perceptions and redefining boundaries between art and apparel.
    Creator/Author:
    Fridlund, Katherine
    Submitter:
    Katherine Fridlund
    Date Uploaded:
    04/19/2024
    Date Modified:
    04/23/2024
    Date Created:
    2024-04-18
    License:
    All rights reserved

  • Fragonard's Reflections of Protofeminism in 18th Century France

    Document thumbnail: Fragonard's Reflections of Protofeminism in 18th Century France
    Type:
    Document
    Description/Abstract:
    In the mid-18th century, France entered the Rococo period, a period of enlightenment and play. As the Enlightenment spurred more liberal ideologies in French society, aristocratic women were afforded more freedoms than in previous periods, such as high education and participation in social and cultural realms such as Salons. Jean-Honoré Fragonard, known widely for his 1767 painting "The Swing", created a large body of work throughout the period often depicting female subjects in genre and allegorical scenes as well as portraiture. Often subverting the typical male gaze in his works, his paintings serve as a reflection of the period of empowerment experienced by aristocratic women in the Rococo period.
    Creator/Author:
    Ogorek, Charlotte
    Submitter:
    Charlotte Ogorek
    Date Uploaded:
    04/04/2024
    Date Modified:
    04/16/2024
    Date Created:
    2024-04-4
    License:
    All rights reserved

  • The Use of Art in Understanding Christian Teachings: How Albrecht Dürer’s "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" aids in the interpretation of the Book of Revelation

    Document thumbnail: The Use of Art in Understanding Christian Teachings: How Albrecht Dürer’s "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" aids in the interpretation of the Book of Revelation
    Type:
    Document
    Description/Abstract:
    Many people and cultures throughout history have taken great interest in the end of the world. Christianity has been used to answer questions about the Apocalypse in the final book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation. Artists from all around the world have used this apocalyptic text as inspiration for their works. In 1498, German artist Albrecht Dürer published a series of fifteen woodcuts depicting scenes from Revelation. One of these was “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, which can be used to more readily understand the teachings and beliefs of the Christian Church in 15th-century Europe.
    Creator/Author:
    Ginley, Moira
    Submitter:
    Moira Ginley
    Date Uploaded:
    04/04/2024
    Date Modified:
    04/22/2024
    Date Created:
    2024
    License:
    All rights reserved

  • Wicked Women: The Illustrated Broadsheet Witches’ Sabbath in Trier as an Othering Mechanism in 16th Century German Print Culture

    Document thumbnail: Wicked Women: The Illustrated Broadsheet Witches’ Sabbath in Trier as an Othering Mechanism in 16th Century German Print Culture
    Type:
    Document
    Description/Abstract:
    Witches’ Sabbath in Trier is a broadsheet that depicts a witches’ sabbath, and was a piece of the thriving print culture of sixteenth century Germany. The image of the witch reflects misogynistic beliefs about women, rooted in the Bible and the female life course. Witch persecution meant that people could find and punish the roots of evil causing their misfortune: witches sent by Satan. This othered population was most often impoverished women whose bodies were scrutinized as possible vessels for evil. Broadsheets like this one were a terrifying and fascinating form of entertainment, helping to spread misogynistic beliefs about witchcraft.
    Creator/Author:
    Recker, Tegan
    Submitter:
    Tegan Recker
    Date Uploaded:
    04/04/2024
    Date Modified:
    04/23/2024
    Date Created:
    March 26, 2024
    License:
    Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL)

  • The Thunder God Raijin & Wind God Fujin: A Look Through the Centuries, from the Thirteenth to the Twenty-First

    Document thumbnail: The Thunder God Raijin & Wind God Fujin: A Look Through the Centuries, from the Thirteenth to the Twenty-First
    Type:
    Document
    Description/Abstract:
    Tawaraya Sotatsu’s screen door print of the Japanese deities you cannot dismiss how unique each one of the figures appears. You also cannot help but wonder how these deities ended up looking the way that they did. We look back to 13th-century Japan to see why Raijin and Fujin ended up being depicted as they did. We consider their history, analysis, and the artist's importance within Japanese culture.
    Creator/Author:
    Coto, Catalina
    Submitter:
    Catalina Coto
    Date Uploaded:
    04/04/2024
    Date Modified:
    04/22/2024
    Date Created:
    April 4th, 2024
    License:
    All rights reserved