- ARTS 1234
History of Art & Architecture
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-7080
- Art History, Gender Studies, Material Culture Studies, Critical Race Theory, History of Textiles, Ceramics (Art History), and 19 moreSocial history and collective memory in art, Queer Theory, Sexuality, Media, Popular Culture, Film, Literature, Poststructuralist Theory, Feminist Theory, History of Art and Architecture, Public Art, Social Engagement, Community Art, Ceramics, Craftivism, Relational aesthetics, Design, Design Theory, and Conceptual functionedit
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Bodies: Sixties Sculpture in the Expanded Field of Gender (London and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), 50 col, 50 b&w ills, 392 pp., £50 Hardcover, ISBN: 9780300196757 Elise Archias, The Concrete Body: Yvonne Rainer,... more
Bodies: Sixties Sculpture in the Expanded Field of Gender (London and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), 50 col, 50 b&w ills, 392 pp., £50 Hardcover, ISBN: 9780300196757 Elise Archias, The Concrete Body: Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneemann, Vito Acconci (London and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016), 36 col, 93 b&w, 240 pp., £55 Hardcover, ISBN: 9780300217971 Deep into the second decade of our new century, an ongoing, voracious interest in the 1960s continues to burn brightly, fuelling the contemporary art discourse of the present. Such is the case with two corporeally driven books, David Getsy's Abstract Bodies and Elise Archias's The Concrete Body, recently published by two distinctive generations of art historian: Getsy is mid-career, an expert on modern European sculpture and the editor of a number of volumes on queer subject matter. This, his third monograph , completes his move from the nineteenth century into the twentieth. Archias is emerging, this book is her first, and last year it was awarded the critic's prize through the College Art Association. Both Getsy and Archias closely explore the individual oeuvres of a range of well-known artists associated with experiments in minimalism and performance:
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Tina Takemoto’s experimental films are infused with a historical consciousness that invokes the queer gaps within the state-sanctioned record of Asian American history. This essay examines Takemoto’s semi-narrative experimental film,... more
Tina Takemoto’s experimental films are infused with a historical consciousness that invokes the queer gaps within the state-sanctioned record of Asian American history. This essay examines Takemoto’s semi-narrative experimental film, Looking for Jiro, which offers complex encounters of queer futurity, remaking historical gaps into interstitial spaces that invite and establish queer existence through both imaginative and direct traces of representation.
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A pivotal figure in the history of Black Mountain College, Mary Caroline Richards (1916–99) was an English professor turned potter and philosopher. This essay reconsiders the role and nature of her ephemeral practices within the context... more
A pivotal figure in the history of Black Mountain College, Mary Caroline Richards (1916–99) was an English professor turned potter and philosopher. This essay reconsiders the role and nature of her ephemeral practices within the context of her 1950s avant‐garde milieu.
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Abstract The American ceramist Beatrice Wood (1893–1998) occupies a threshold position in early twentieth-century modernism: posited between the subject positions of lover and woman artist and between the avant-garde and craft. In doing... more
Abstract The American ceramist Beatrice Wood (1893–1998) occupies a threshold position in early twentieth-century modernism: posited between the subject positions of lover and woman artist and between the avant-garde and craft. In doing so, she offers a new representation of camp. This article explores her queer aestheticism.
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Art critic Arlene Raven's life and work are the subject of seventeen visual and narrative essays and a chronology in this special issue of the journal Critical Matrix: The Princeton Journal of Women, Gender, and Culture.
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There is a remarkable moment near the beginning of Jenni Sorkin’s book Live Form, in which she discusses a milk jug by the potter Marguerite Wildenhain. Made during Wildenhain’s tenure at the Weimar Bauhaus, it features an unusual... more
There is a remarkable moment near the beginning of Jenni Sorkin’s book Live Form, in which she discusses a milk jug by the potter Marguerite Wildenhain. Made during Wildenhain’s tenure at the Weimar Bauhaus, it features an unusual combination of hazy-blue cobalt coloration and salt-glazed firing technique. But it is the function of the pot that arrests Sorkin’s attention. She points out that, at the time this “slightly potbellied” jug was made, Wildenhain and her fellow students were subsisting on a near-starvation diet: oatmeal three times a day and homegrown swiss chard. Though the pot is suggestive of “the humble abundance of raw, fresh milk, the crown jewel of the farmhouse table,” Sorkin writes, in fact “there was none to be had” (55). Through this biographical reading, the simple utilitarian form becomes infused with human interest—all the more poignant given that the milk jug was the only piece Wildenhain managed to take with her when, fleeing the Nazis, she emigrated to the ...
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The first comprehensive, historical exhibition to examine the international foundations and legacy of feminist art, WACK! focuses on 1965 to 1980, the crucial period during which the majority of feminist activism and art-making occurred... more
The first comprehensive, historical exhibition to examine the international foundations and legacy of feminist art, WACK! focuses on 1965 to 1980, the crucial period during which the majority of feminist activism and art-making occurred in North America. The exhibition includes the work of approximately 100 artists from the United States, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Comprising work in a broad range of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, film, video and performance art, the exhibition is organized around themes based on media, geography, formal concerns, and collective aesthetic and political impulses. The exhibition is curated by MOCA Curator Connie Butler and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue
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An analysis of Mary and Pat's new video work, a responsive and responsible satire that lampoons the history of Western art.
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Essay on Analia Saban's exhibition, View Count, currently on view at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York (May-June 2021)
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Brochure text for 375 Hudson Street, Lobby Gallery, New York, slated for March 2020, newly opened in September 2020.
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Appropriation became a central strategy of artmaking in New York during the 1970s and 1980s, harnessed by two distinct groups of artists working in the city: the Pattern and Decoration movement (P&D) and what has come be known as the... more
Appropriation became a central strategy of artmaking in New York during the 1970s and 1980s, harnessed by two distinct groups of artists working in the city: the Pattern and Decoration movement (P&D) and what has come be known as the Pictures generation.
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A history of alternative art spaces in Chicago with a vested interest in feminist, queer, and the burgeoning investments in non-traditional media such as video and fiber.
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This essay examines Brazilian artist José Leonilson's embroidered artworks, and their relationship to the body, queer identity, and the social and personal ravages of AIDS crisis.
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Theories of women artists and the conditions for studio-based sculpture, in conjunction with the exhibition catalog, Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947-2016
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A revisionist history of the influence of women ceramists on Peter Voulkos's early career and teaching.
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Two contemporary emerging artists who queer the body through haptic sculptural practices.
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An analysis and contextualization of Seattle-based Dan Webb's carving and wood sculpture, on the occasion of the artist's first solo museum exhibition, Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, Washington, 2014.
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Catalog on the occasion of Myra Mimlitsch-Gray's Master Metalsmith exhibition at the National Metal Museum, Memphis, Tennessee
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Brochure Text from Diana Guerrero-Maciá's Exhibition at Threewalls, Chicago, 2012
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Barbara Kasten: Stages (Zürich: JRP|Ringier, 2015), 148-169.
In conjunction with the exhibition organized by Alex Klein, ICA Philadelphia.
In conjunction with the exhibition organized by Alex Klein, ICA Philadelphia.
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The mash up is the preeminent discursive strategy of Francesca DiMattio’s (American, b. 1981) artistic practice, reveling in the strangeness of conflicting terminologies, styles and forms. Her ceramic works are a pastiche of the myriad... more
The mash up is the preeminent discursive strategy of Francesca DiMattio’s (American, b. 1981) artistic practice, reveling in the strangeness of conflicting terminologies, styles and forms. Her ceramic works are a pastiche of the myriad of historical decorative objects upon which she draws.
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This paper problematizes the appropriation of craft into spheres that are not craft, but rather, craft-like. I am defining craft-like as a strain of work that incorporates the craft act or material evidence of what might be described as... more
This paper problematizes the appropriation of craft into spheres that are not craft, but rather, craft-like. I am defining craft-like as a strain of work that incorporates the craft act or material evidence of what might be described as a “soft theft”: a range of techniques that could be described as borrowing, pilfering, admiring, and copying.
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Books Column, Frieze N. 170 (April 2015)
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The American ceramist Beatrice Wood (1893-1998) occupies a threshold position in early twentieth-century modernism: posited between the subject positions of lover and woman artist and between the avant-garde and craft. In doing so, she... more
The American ceramist Beatrice Wood (1893-1998) occupies a threshold position in early twentieth-century modernism: posited between the subject positions of lover and woman artist and between the avant-garde and craft. In doing so, she offers a new representation of camp. This article explores her queer aestheticism.
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Tina Takemoto’s experimental films are infused with a historical consciousness that invokes the queer gaps within the state-sanctioned record of Asian American history. This essay examines Takemoto’s semi-narrative experimental film,... more
Tina Takemoto’s experimental films are infused with a historical consciousness that invokes the queer gaps within the state-sanctioned record of Asian American history. This essay examines Takemoto’s semi-narrative experimental film, Looking for Jiro, which offers complex encounters of queer futurity, remaking historical gaps into interstitial spaces that invite and establish queer existence through both imaginative and direct traces of representation.
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The Decorative Impulse and the New Aesthetic Democracy,
College Art Association, February 2014
College Art Association, February 2014
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Ceramics had a far-reaching impact in the second half of the twentieth century, as its artists worked through the same ideas regarding abstraction and form as those for other creative mediums. Live Form shines new light on the relation of... more
Ceramics had a far-reaching impact in the second half of the twentieth century, as its artists worked through the same ideas regarding abstraction and form as those for other creative mediums. Live Form shines new light on the relation of ceramics to the artistic avant-garde by looking at the central role of women in the field: potters who popularized ceramics as they worked with or taught male counterparts like John Cage, Peter Voulkos, and Ken Price.
Sorkin focuses on three Americans who promoted ceramics as an advanced artistic medium: Marguerite Wildenhain, a Bauhaus-trained potter and writer; Mary Caroline (M. C.) Richards, who renounced formalism at Black Mountain College to pursue new performative methods; and Susan Peterson, best known for her live throwing demonstrations on public television. Together, these women pioneered a hands-on teaching style and led educational and therapeutic activities for war veterans, students, the elderly, and many others. Far from being an isolated field, ceramics offered a sense of community and social engagement, which, Sorkin argues, crucially set the stage for later participatory forms of art and feminist collectivism.
Sorkin focuses on three Americans who promoted ceramics as an advanced artistic medium: Marguerite Wildenhain, a Bauhaus-trained potter and writer; Mary Caroline (M. C.) Richards, who renounced formalism at Black Mountain College to pursue new performative methods; and Susan Peterson, best known for her live throwing demonstrations on public television. Together, these women pioneered a hands-on teaching style and led educational and therapeutic activities for war veterans, students, the elderly, and many others. Far from being an isolated field, ceramics offered a sense of community and social engagement, which, Sorkin argues, crucially set the stage for later participatory forms of art and feminist collectivism.
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"Peter Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years" is the first monograph in over 20 years on the artist Peter Voulkos. Covering the most prolific span of Voulkos’ career, from the early 1950s to the 1970s, this book includes both his well-known... more
"Peter Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years" is the first monograph in over 20 years on the artist Peter Voulkos. Covering the most prolific span of Voulkos’ career, from the early 1950s to the 1970s, this book includes both his well-known ceramic works as well as his largely overlooked paintings.
While Voulkos’ work has most often been discussed in relation to the practice of ceramics, the writers in this book explore the artist’s work through the scope of art history and in a contemporary light. In addition to engaging with the breakthrough years of Voulkos’ practice, a focus is also put on his legacy today, as numerous artists explore the expressive language of clay that he helped to re-invent.
The book includes texts from writers Andrew Perchuk, Deputy Director at The Getty Research Institute; and Jenni Sorkin, Assistant Professor in Contemporary Art at UC Santa Barbara.
Published in collaboration with the Museum of Arts and Design, New York.
While Voulkos’ work has most often been discussed in relation to the practice of ceramics, the writers in this book explore the artist’s work through the scope of art history and in a contemporary light. In addition to engaging with the breakthrough years of Voulkos’ practice, a focus is also put on his legacy today, as numerous artists explore the expressive language of clay that he helped to re-invent.
The book includes texts from writers Andrew Perchuk, Deputy Director at The Getty Research Institute; and Jenni Sorkin, Assistant Professor in Contemporary Art at UC Santa Barbara.
Published in collaboration with the Museum of Arts and Design, New York.
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Bodies: Sixties Sculpture in the Expanded Field of Gender (London and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), 50 col, 50 b&w ills, 392 pp., £50 Hardcover, ISBN: 9780300196757 Elise Archias, The Concrete Body: Yvonne Rainer, Carolee... more
Bodies: Sixties Sculpture in the Expanded Field of Gender (London and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), 50 col, 50 b&w ills, 392 pp., £50 Hardcover, ISBN: 9780300196757 Elise Archias, The Concrete Body: Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneemann, Vito Acconci (London and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016), 36 col, 93 b&w, 240 pp., £55 Hardcover, ISBN: 9780300217971 Deep into the second decade of our new century, an ongoing, voracious interest in the 1960s continues to burn brightly, fuelling the contemporary art discourse of the present. Such is the case with two corporeally driven books, David Getsy's Abstract Bodies and Elise Archias's The Concrete Body, recently published by two distinctive generations of art historian: Getsy is mid-career, an expert on modern European sculpture and the editor of a number of volumes on queer subject matter. This, his third monograph , completes his move from the nineteenth century into the twentieth. Archias is emerging, this book is her first, and last year it was awarded the critic's prize through the College Art Association. Both Getsy and Archias closely explore the individual oeuvres of a range of well-known artists associated with experiments in minimalism and performance:
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Review of Live Form
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This keynote lecture at the Yale Center for British Art, November 10, 2017, considers the gendered history of American ceramist Adelaide Alsop Robineau’s famed, labor intensive Scarab Vase (1910) as an unlikely precursor—one hundred years... more
This keynote lecture at the Yale Center for British Art, November 10, 2017,
considers the gendered history of American ceramist Adelaide Alsop Robineau’s famed, labor intensive Scarab Vase (1910) as an unlikely precursor—one hundred years later—to digitally printed clay, utilized today by ceramists working in the 2010s.
considers the gendered history of American ceramist Adelaide Alsop Robineau’s famed, labor intensive Scarab Vase (1910) as an unlikely precursor—one hundred years later—to digitally printed clay, utilized today by ceramists working in the 2010s.
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A blunt discussion of the problem of specialization in academia.