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Athanor
Number of Followers: 4  Open Access journalISSN (Print) 0732-1619 - ISSN (Online) 2690-0181 Published by U of Florida  [11 journals]
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- Out of Nowhere
Authors: Nadezhda Gribkova
Pages: 1 - 18
Abstract: This paper examines the early works of Soviet conceptual performance art group Collective Actions, founded in 1976, and focuses on the way the group employed the concept of “emptiness” as a motif throughout its practice. Namely, I consider the 1979 action Place of Action (fig.1-4), organized by Andrey Monastryrski and Nikita Alekseev, and pay particular attention to how the organizers engaged with the aesthetic quality of emptiness and worked to articulate the possibility of human practice within an empty space. The stakes of such a line of inquiry are best understood when one considers the historical moment of the Collective Actions’ work, as well as the parallel artistic tendencies within the unofficial art circle in the Soviet Union and the ambition of conceptual art in the West. Notions of nothingness, emptiness, and dematerialization dominate the visual language of much conceptual art in post-war Western (fig. 5) and late-Soviet (fig. 6) contexts and articulate a critical position vis-à-vis the old, assumed to be retrograde, notions of structure, institution, and aesthetic form. To this end, I will freground conceptualism’s expressions of disillusionment in and disavowal of political and cultural institutions. These sentiments welcomed “nothingness” as a productive metaphor which was worked into the larger conversations about art’s function in the late Cold War era. Though they took different avenues, many Western and Soviet conceptual practices arrived at theorizations of varying voids as emancipatory practices. I propose to consider performance art practices of Collective Actions as negotiating a productive relationship between emptiness and collectivity through an artistic practice that relies on, at the time suspect, categories of structure, composition, and social form. Their approach renders emptiness not a byproduct of the disenchanted negation of the old but as a particular quality of the newly articulated space, available for aesthetic exploration. Collective Actions, I argue, take one of conceptualism's dominant tropes—that of nothingness, dematerialization, boundlessness—and articulate it in a tangible, workable, and localized tension within the confines of a work of art.
PubDate: 2022-11-22
DOI: 10.33009/FSU_athanor131135
Issue No: Vol. 39 (2022)
- Ancient Or Up-To-Date'
Authors: Jiaqi Liu
Pages: 19 - 34
Abstract: Nie Chongyi, a court ritualist, redesigned ritual paraphernalia used at state sacrifices in the late 950s, which led to the birth of an important ritual manual – Illustrations of the Three Classics of Rites. The tenth century was a time when continuous violence not only empowered regional forces, but also destroyed many tangible heritages, including ritual objects and spaces of the former Tang Empire (618-907). Nie responded to the vacuum of a supreme authority over state rituals by deviating from the prevalent Tang standards and proposing to revise ancient ritual practices. Through an examination of Nie’s design of five drinking cups mentioned in ritual manuals, I aim to highlight the political demands behind Nie's work.
PubDate: 2022-11-22
DOI: 10.33009/FSU_athanor131146
Issue No: Vol. 39 (2022)
- Sino-Filipino Artistic Collaboration
Authors: Dani Putney
Pages: 35 - 52
Abstract: The Hispano-Philippine style of ivory sculpture production in colonial Manila is almost synonymous with the growth of Spain’s global empire from the sixteenth century onward. These sculptures have been studied by historians and art critics alike in terms of Latin American consumer demand, marketability, Catholic devotion and conversion, and “Chineseness,” among other veins of inquiry. Common across these investigations is discussion of the significance of Chinese immigrants within the Spanish colony, who have been consistently identified as the creators of these sculptures. One community of artisans important to Philippine sculpture-making, however, has been understudied: the native Filipinos of colonial Manila, by far the largest group in the city. Why has the role of native Filipinos, despite being documented as painters and sculptors contemporaneous with the Chinese immigrants, been disregarded in the art-historical record of ivory sculpture production' In this article, I address these “silences” within the Hispano-Philippine sculptural archive by historicizing the sociocultural milieu of colonial Manila, performing visual analysis informed by postcolonial theory, and interrogating commonly referenced sources and narratives, an endeavor I maintain will enable art historians to contextualize these sculptures within a larger imperial, intercultural, and intersubjective framework of artistic creation.
PubDate: 2022-11-22
DOI: 10.33009/FSU_athanor130974
Issue No: Vol. 39 (2022)
- Mary Cassatt’s portraits of her sister, Lydia
Authors: Lini Radhakrishnan
Pages: 53 - 64
Abstract: In the 1880 portrait, Lydia crocheting in the Garden at Marly, I argue that Mary Cassatt visually recorded symptoms of the malady that ultimately consumed her sibling. When compared with earlier portraits of Lydia, there is evidence of startling weight loss and signs of insomnia. In this paper, I explore Cassatt’s images of her sister painted in the final years of Lydia’s life to identify potent, but overlooked signifiers of disease and death on her form. Taking care of her sister allowed Cassatt to develop a deeper intimacy with the vulnerable body and honed her eye to recognize corporeal traces of disease. Her educated gaze rendered Lydia’s skin almost translucent, revealing symptoms that are no longer subtle once brought to the surface. These images showcase the trauma of Cassatt’s caregiving experience and serve as a precursor to a remarkable shift in her subject, marking a turning point in her career when she began to paint pictures of children held by their caregivers. I draw upon archival sources such as the Cassatt family’s correspondence and papers to establish that her oeuvre serves as a repository of the trauma of her lived experience.
PubDate: 2022-11-22
DOI: 10.33009/FSU_athanor130984
Issue No: Vol. 39 (2022)
- “Framing” Kandinsky’s Painting with Red Spot (1914)
Authors: Mia Reich
Pages: 65 - 80
Abstract: In contemporary museum studies discourse, scholars have begun to reexamine both the role of the curator and exhibition space in their joint effect on visitor experience. Underpinning the relationship of these three parties is the element of language, or more commonly known within this discipline, the wall label. This label intrinsically “frames” its adjacent artwork as it proposes a certain narrative, one that is crafted by curators and communicates ideas and themes deemed important by its writers. However, what about art that eludes one singular interpretation, such as abstraction' Could proposing an exclusive narrative be detrimental to the multiplicity of meaning that abstract art promotes' Considering these issues, this paper examines Painting with Red Spot (1914) by Wassily Kandinsky and its current “framing” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris to analyze both the relationship between language, abstraction and meaning making, and the complicated role of artist intent that accompanies exhibiting Kandinsky. This paper argues that “framing” Kandinsky’s P.W.R.S in relation to the artist’s contradictory embrace of kitsch in 1914 will provide a framework for his stylistic experiments at this time in his career, offering the proper stepping-stones to encourage contemplation while still leaving room for a multiplicity of meaning.
PubDate: 2022-11-22
DOI: 10.33009/FSU_athanor131134
Issue No: Vol. 39 (2022)
- How to make site-specific art when sites themselves have histories
Authors: Brandon Sward
Pages: 81 - 94
Abstract: The term “site-specific” is generally used to describe art self-consciously made to exist in a certain place, effectively making the site a static background for the dynamism of art. If we accept this definition, then how are we to account for the fact that sites themselves have histories' This paper addresses this question by analyzing four performances by the Chicano/a collective Asco: Stations of the Cross, First Supper (After a Major Riot), Walking Mural, and Instant Mural. Whittier Boulevard carries a portion of El Camino Real, which once connected the Catholic missions of Alta California. We know Asco was aware of this fact because a member of Asco once “used the phrase ‘el camino surreal’…to describe Whittier Boulevard as the setting where everyday reality could quickly devolve into absurdist, excessive action.” Contextualizing these performances within the geography of colonial California challenges interpretations of Asco as merely opposing contemporaneous events like the Vietnam War and gentrification, whereas Asco had a more nuanced and expansive understanding of oppression linking the Latin American diaspora. Together, these performances show us how a group contests domesticating and folklorizing stereotypes. Although preexisting scholarship explains these gestures as “protest art,” situating them against Whittier Boulevard allows us to appreciate the radicality of Asco. By engaging with Catholic and muralist imagery, Asco draws parallels between their experience as racial minorities and the history of Latin American colonialism, which highlights both the composite nature of Chicano/a identity and how artists might make site-specific work when sites themselves have histories.
PubDate: 2022-11-22
DOI: 10.33009/FSU_athanor131122
Issue No: Vol. 39 (2022)
- Export Paintings as Art and Agency
Authors: Lina Shinhwa Koo
Pages: 95 - 110
Abstract: Export paintings that depict local images of one’s country with the purpose of being sold to foreign customers emerged in China and Korea in the late eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries, respectively, when the countries opened their ports to Europe and America. Given this historical context, the conventional understanding of export paintings of the two countries has been twofold at large: 1) commodities that reflect Euro-American customers’ tastes for exotic imageries and 2) ethnographic resources that exhibit unique characteristics of each country’s culture. While these interpretations have a valid ground, they often undermine the artistic qualities of the painting genre, separating it from the existing painting traditions. To broaden this perspective, my paper aims to suggest plural ways of discerning export paintings through cross-cultural comparisons. In doing so, this study highlights the integral roles of export painters in responding to changing social, political, and economic circumstances, posing a critical question for investigation: whether export paintings are images of self-objectification with the instillation of Orientalist ideologies or creative outcomes with an artistic agency. While these two stances are not mutually exclusive nor contradictory to each other, this core question allows one to challenge the linear understanding of the history of “non-western” art.
PubDate: 2022-11-22
DOI: 10.33009/FSU_athanor131145
Issue No: Vol. 39 (2022)
- The Reader in the Cosmos
Authors: Sam Truman
Pages: 111 - 134
Abstract: In his thirteenth-century astronomical encyclopedia, L’Image du Monde, French cleric Goussoin de Metz attempts to guide his readers to knowledge of God by demonstrating the unity of creation. This sense of the book as a tool to be used by the reader is evident in BnF fr. 574. This manuscript, likely painted in Paris around 1320 for Guillaume Flote (1280–1366), an advisor to Philip the Fair, contains twenty-eight detailed diagrams. Although analyses of such diagrams constitute a large part of the study of medieval memory, the figures of the Image have not been considered within this context. Taking BnF fr. 574 as a case study, I will examine how the Image’s diagrams serve as mnemonic devices—physical, external locations where information from the text can be stored and returned to for later examination. I will argue that these images work to simultaneously construct and reinforce the place of the reader within the broad system of creation. I will then propose three possible ways of reading the text: first in order, then in iteration, and finally in motion. Finally, I will consider evidence of previous owners’ engagement with the manuscript, and how these interactions further incorporated them into Goussoin’s cosmology.
PubDate: 2022-11-22
DOI: 10.33009/FSU_athanor131132
Issue No: Vol. 39 (2022)
- Reconsidering the Lacemaker
Authors: Jennifer Wendler
Pages: 135 - 154
Abstract: The few published analyses of Caspar Netscher’s Lacemaker (1662) conclude that Netscher captured a straight-forward portrayal of a middle-class housewife modeling ideal feminine domestic virtue. I contend that previously overlooked ambiguities in Netscher’s canvas complicate this simplistic interpretation, in which details, such as the elegant red bodice and sturdy, unfashionable skirt, confuse rather than clarify this space and the woman depicted. Considering the artist’s visual cues within the sociohistorical context of the work, I theorize that The Lacemaker represents a German immigrant and a maidservant working in a middle-class household, rather than a Dutch housewife as specialists have maintained. By centralizing a working-class migrant, Netscher challenged the expectation that Dutch genre paintings should construct and reinforce ideals of feminine domesticity as a singularly middle-class endeavor. He also challenged biases about outsider identities circulating at the time. Given the negative stereotypes of both maidservants and German migrants, Netscher portrayed this figure in a revolutionary manner: as a woman caught between cultures who, like Dutch women, embodied industriousness and virtue. However, this sympathetic vision did not arouse support in The Hague. Netscher’s Lacemaker became an anomaly in his oeuvre, its perplexing details and apparent modesty out of fashion.
PubDate: 2022-11-22
DOI: 10.33009/FSU_athanor131136
Issue No: Vol. 39 (2022)
- Pissarro at Pontoise
Authors: Genevieve Westerby
Pages: 155 - 170
Abstract: In 1872, Camille Pissarro rendered the water of the Oise River rushing over a low dam with rapid, broken brushstrokes of pure color. Canal barges are moored to the opposite bank, their masts mirroring the young trees that line the bank and lead to the riparian village of Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône in the background. Here the artist depicts aspects of daily life on a major tributary of the Seine, but also how civil engineering projects transformed France’s river ecosystem. Throughout the nineteenth century, a range of new infrastructure projects were undertaken—from river dredging to the building of locks and dams—to create a predictable and reliable transportation network. How other signs of industrialization and modernity—like train bridges and riverside factories—manifested in the art of this period is well understood. Yet the presence of riverine infrastructure in the landscape is rarely discussed. Pissarro’s depictions of the Oise River offer a rich entry point to consider how these interventions radically altered the nature of these waterways and how the changed environment was approached by artists. Placing his pictures within the context of the infrastructure projects executed along the river, and in dialogue with the naturalist approach of Charles-François Daubigny to this same river, brings into focus Pissarro's ecological gaze, which registered the river as a space that was both natural and engineered.
PubDate: 2022-11-22
DOI: 10.33009/FSU_athanor131131
Issue No: Vol. 39 (2022)
- From Earth to Heaven
Authors: Zhenru Zhou
Pages: 171 - 192
Abstract: This paper investigates the architectural turn of the largest Buddhist cave complex in late-medieval Dunhuang (in Northwest China) with a focus on the contemporaneous exterior structures. The structures include timber facades that cover the caves’ antechambers cut out from the vertical cliff, timber-structured ante-halls on the ground, and earthen shrines and pagodas on the cliff top. These exterior structures, albeit mostly non-extant, constituted the comprehensive built environment of the Mogao cave site. This paper first overviews the diversity of exterior structures through a theoretical reconstruction of several building types including gable-sided facades, eave-sided facades with baosha-dormers, and compound architecture comprising a double-or-triple-level pavilion-like facade and a cliff-top shrine. I then look into one of the three zones where the multiple façade types congregate. The three zones, namely, cave cloisters centered around the Southern and Northern Colossal Buddha Caves and “the Three-Story Pavilion,” defined and redefined the appearance of the mile-long complex by means of vertical extension against the pre-existing horizontal passageways and skylines. As the paper argues, the exterior structures were a collective attempt to transform the cave site into a palatial complex amid mountains, which was motivated by a longing for synchronizing the earthly and the heavenly realms.
PubDate: 2022-11-22
DOI: 10.33009/FSU_athanor131171
Issue No: Vol. 39 (2022)
