Art Histories

The Non-Objectifying Voyeurism in John Sloan’s "The Cot"

UC Davis art history graduate student Alexandra Rea-Baum offers a new view on American artist John Sloan through the analysis of his non-objectifying gaze seen in "The Cot," a painting included in the Ash Can's exhibit at the MacBeth Gallery, NYC, in 1907.

Paul Morrisey's "Flesh": Seeing through the Eyes of Warhol's America

Melanie Ross explores how Paul Morrissey's film "Flesh," used the visual vocabulary of Andy Warhol to advocate for conservative morals and foreshadowed a shifting attitude of public values. Morrissey changed Warholʼs filmmaking techniques from a self-reflexive avant-guard mode to a commercial approach. The film was released in 1968, the cataclysmic year of the counterculture rebellion.

The 21st Century Tiller Girls of YouTube in Natalie Bookchin's Mass Ornament

Kristina Schlosser presents a section from her thesis on new media and the expanding role of the internet for the 2010 MA orals. She focuses on contemporary video artists Natalie Bookchin and examines her work, "Mass Ornament," and the implications of the individual worker/dancer silently connected by the Internet.

Social Themes in American Women Seen Through the Eyes of Alice Neel

MA candidate Melanie Ross presents her paper on Alice Neel for the Hawaii International Conference of the Humanities. Born in 1900, Neel struggled against social norms as a female painter in a male dominated career. Exploring her paintings of couples from the '60s and '70s, Neel captures the uprising of the feminist movement and the battle of the sexes.

Regarded/Disregarded: The Reception of Body Culture: Chicano Figuration, from 1990-1992

UC Davis art history graduate student Kristina Schlosser explores the reception of Chicano art and its reception within the larger hegemonic art world.