2008 SECAC Conference Abstracts

SECAC Abstracts from the Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana September 24-27, 2008 Conference Chair: A. Lawrence Jenkens Art History Program Chair: A. Lawrence Jenkens Studio Program Chair: Gary Keown Abadie-Fail, Trudy. See Begley, David. Adams, J. Bradley. Berry College. On Gardens “The garden is the smallest parcel of the world and then it is the totality of the world. The garden has been a sort of happy, universalizing heterotopia since the beginning of antiquity.” -- Michel Foucault My work since graduate school is explicitly connected to an operating paradigm of “gardens.” Gardens are classic examples of heterotopic spaces, i.e. “a place with multiple uses” (Michel Foucault), such as libraries, cemeteries, and museums. Through gardens, I have been examining various ordering systems (e.g. gardens as controlled nature) via a range of representations and working methods. Just as gardens are varied, the term provides me with a license to explore a range of ideas (e.g. displacement, sequential time, chance operations) with heterogeneous methods. In addition to theorizing this work through the language of abstraction, it also references art made in a range of cultures and historical styles such as a Southern quilt tradition and tree of life motifs found in carpets (i.e. portable gardens). Recent work is an extension of this research but is marked by revisiting ideas such as camouflage, mapping, and traces that were central to my concerns well before graduate school. Alexander, James Rodger. University of Alabama at Birmingham. Architecture and Sculpture: A Cross Pollination of Attitudes and Intentions The last three decades of the twentieth century saw the disciplines of architecture and sculpture merge in a manner previously unseen. The formal vocabulary of architecture emerged in the sculpture of artists such as Michael Heizer, Charles Simonds, Jackie Ferrara, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Alice Aycock, Mary Miss, Robert Morris, Robert Stackhouse, and Joel Shapiro. Other sculptors such as Christo and Gordon Matta- Clark engaged architecture directly by utilizing existing architectural structures as the contextual frameworks for their sculptural pieces, bringing to them new perceptions of architectural form and new definitions of architectural function. In a similar manner, architects such as Michael Graves, Peter Eisenman, Richard Meier, James Wines and Sites, and Frank Gehry have actively explored the sculptural implications of their architectural works. In addition, these and other architects have explored architectural drawings not merely as construction documents but also as works of art that are expressive of an architectural intention. Their drawings and models have been exhibited in a variety of art museum venues while their interpretations of the museum environment itself have blurred the definitions of both architecture and sculpture. Alexis, Bryan. University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. Beyond the Finished Project: Streamlining Grading and Assessment After a student project is completed, the instructor’s work is just beginning. This paper reveals methods of critique and grading that shortens the time from project end to getting relevant feedback into the students’ hands. It shows how time can be saved by repositioning written responses to the student and by using live scoring to get a jump on final assessment. The paper also calls for a response from other instructors to input ideas in order to create an even better process. Alligood, Dustin Chad. University of Georgia. Transition and Transformation in Rothko’s Pictures: An Anthropological Perspective The New York School was notoriously sensitive to external cultural forces: the Cold War, Freudian psychoanalysis, and so-called “primitive” cultures have been counted among these. Perhaps the least examined of such forces has been the mid-century rise of the cultural cachet of anthropology. My paper examines anthropological sources for the New York School, with specific attention to the pictures of Mark Rothko. My filter for doing so is the theory of liminality, explicated by anthropologist Victor Turner in his book The Forest of Symbols. I hope to prove that the “liminal phase” as theorized by Turner is predicated on the concept of ambiguity and that, as objects of liminality or sacra, Rothko’s paintings stage a space of transformation for the viewer that necessarily destabilizes cultural structures in its mechanism. To understand how such an anthropological theory may be fruitfully applied to the New York School in general and to Rothko specifically, I examine the influence of emergent anthropological perspectives on the intellectual and popular culture of mid-twentieth century America. I then turn to the ways in which Turner’s theory may be represented in and by Rothko’s paintings, both pictorially and with respect to the viewer. Anderson, Lisa. University of South Carolina Upstate. The Design of a Charrette: Using the Charrette Concept to Ignite Student Learning As educators, we stockpile a number of teaching and assessment methods. These grow and change, adjusting to needs of students as well as industry requirements. Projects that require a quick turnaround can simulate the “real world.” By giving students a specific goal under a strict deadline, it requires them to create an idea, execute it, and turn it in at the end of one class period. The projects can be implemented individually or in groups. These “crunch” projects mirror professional practice and are in effect a version of the charette. Limiting instruction during these exercises allows for interpretation and expansion of ideas and gives students the opportunity to demonstrate they can think fast on their feet. The design of the charette can expand the design educator’s cache of teaching methods and produce great results. Topics can encompass all areas of visual communication with end products that reference real world output. Using the charette idea throughout all design coursework enhances quicker cognitive skills and communal learning in students’ academic careers. Andrus, Jane Vahlkamp. University of Kentucky. Gallé on the Couch: Reconciling Conscious and Unconscious Elements in his Life and Work The term “psychoanalysis,” first used by Freud in 1896, is defined as the investigation of the “interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the patient’s mind … using techniques such as dream interpretation… .” (OED) The glass vessels of Freud’s contemporary Émile Gallé (1846-1904) are also investigations of the relationships between waking and dreaming states, cognizance and trance, and the conscious mind and the subconscious psyche. There is no evidence that Freud and Gallé ever met, but Gallé was acquainted with Dr. Hippolyte Bernheim, a neurologist with whom Freud studied during his visits to France in the 1880s. The roots of psychoanalysis lie in Freud’s research into medical treatments for “hysteria” and other nervous disorders, which included hypnotism and advanced forms of mesmerism. It is well documented by Silverman and others that Gallé’s work tapped into this “nouvelle psychologie.” This paper proposes psychoanalysis of “conscious” versus “unconscious” elements of Gallé’s life and work: successful entrepreneur, member of the Nancy garden club, and bourgeois family man versus passionate botanist, intimate of Parisian Symbolist circles, and creator of dream-like vessels teeming with hallucinogenic plant life. Gallé’s use of pre-Freudian psychological treatments such as trance states and automatic drawing is also examined. Ansell, Elizabeth. University of North Texas. Sanctified Through Pain: The Hagiography of Frida Kahlo This paper takes an iconographical look at several self-portraits that depict Frida Kahlo in the process of self- mortification. The chosen images illustrate her intense emotional and physical pain, as well as the torturous medical and metaphorical apparatuses that represent it iconographically. By juxtaposing these self-portraits with hagiographical biographies of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Spanish American nuns, a visual link is made between their divine pain as brides of Christ, and Kahlo‘s earthly suffering. Through biographical information, historical and personal interpretation, an iconographical analysis shows that Kahlo, like the nuns, depicted herself in conjunction with devotional objects and implements of self-torture to illustrate her bodily suffering and to draw herself closer to her revered husband. By taking stylistic and iconographical cues from hagiographical biographies of devoted Spanish Colonial nuns, and creating her own stylized version, Kahlo created a persona of the sanctified sufferer from her own physical afflictions, and visually solidified her role as the worthy bride of Diego Rivera. Kahlo’s endurance of intense physical pain, self inflicted or otherwise, with stalwart strength, is shown in her self representation as a hagiographical icon – showing that she, like the nuns she chose to emulate, was the most deserving of her revered spouse. Arbury, A.S. Radford University. The University Art Museum: Trials and Tribulations The Radford University Art Museum seeks to provide quality exhibitions that cover a wide range of topics and media, and serve a broad audience. There are many factors to consider. As a university museum, we view the students as the primary audience—a philosophy reinforced by the fact that the museum’s main source of funding is student fees. But we also want to mount shows that appeal to other members of

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