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Item Alone in the West with a portrait of art history(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2024) Krause, Nicholas O'Brien; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Rollin BeamishHow do we find our place in the historical narrative of art on the vast continuum of human creativity? Art is a reflection and director of culture that embodies historic movements and fundamental principles that enable us to see a continuity and a relationship to humanity over the centuries. To understand our place in the historical canon we must reflect on the past to evaluate our current situation. We draw from the past to inform our understanding of art and culture to take responsibility for the direction of art in the future. To do this we must find a relationship to the aesthetics of historical, cultural movements and investigate the ideas and processes of different ages, to see how we can relate to them, and figure out how to represent the expanding collection of culture and art going forward.Item Cultivating legitimacy: how the Julio-Claudians used their Trans-Tiberum Horti to secure dynastic power(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2023) Jacobs, Erin Elizabeth; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Regina GeeThis paper will argue how the Julio-Claudians, then later the Flavian and early 2nd- century emperors, used the Trans-Tiberum imperial horti as sites for cultivating greater statues for themselves in several ways. These emperors had to navigate a unique challenge in terms of their leadership status. Emperors could not be kings nor gods outright, and they had to maintain the pre-established "traditions of the ancestors," which affected nearly every aspect of Roman everyday life and could not be openly changed. This meant that the first emperors, the Julio- Claudians, were on unsteady terrain in terms of how to establish and exercise their authority over the Roman people in life, and how they could ensure they would be well-remembered after death. While Emperor Augustus, the first Julio-Claudian emperor, established the tradition of using built monuments and topographical associations to achieve these goals, overtime, as the position of the emperor became more firmly established, subsequent Julio-Claudian emperors needed to come up with new, but equally subtle, strategies in order to assert their status, authority, and legacy. In addition to their locations near important sites, the Julio-Claudians, and then later emperors, had more freedom and ability within these imperial horti, that they owned, to more easily invoke numerous Republican-era traditions that subtly allowed them associations with figures or beings of great power. This paper will demonstrate, through various mediums of evidence, how these imperial horti were convergences of pleasure gardens and sacred groves in that they drew upon copious traditions associated with these spaces, as well as demonstrate how other Republican-era traditions concerning fluidity or strictness of boundaries, public and private spaces, topographical associations, symbolism in built forms, environmental manipulation, and controlled public reception were applied to these horti. All of these factors will demonstrate how these imperial horti were unique "stages" in which the emperors could perform suggestive transformations in order to try and wedge closer to a higher status, thus creating unique opportunities to legitimize the status of the emperor in numerous ways that could not be achieved through the use of any other single type of space in the Roman world.Item Hybrid objects(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2021) Figueroa, Casey Curran; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Jim Zimpel and Walter Fleming (co-chair)What follows is an exploration of praxis in Studio Art informed by research and application of methodologies and paradigms found within Indigenous culture. By examining the roles of Relationality, Sovereignty, and Positionality found in Native American Studies, and applied in conjunction with the methods found in Contemporary Art, insight can be gained into how art and culture responds to contemporary circumstances and future changes, as well as how this can provide value to the fields of Native American Studies and contemporary art.Item Locating the ancient of days: appropriation and syncretism in the development of a Byzantine christological motif(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2018) Jacobson, Kearstin Alexandra; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Regina GeeConstantinople, capital city of the Byzantine Empire established by Constantine in the fourth century, carried the economic, military, and multicultural advantages of a city that had already existed as a desirable settlement location for nearly a millennium under numerous polities and names. Strategically located on the Bosporus Strait linking the Sea of Marmara and Black Sea, thus the major Euro-Asiatic trade routes, Constantinople benefitted from its position of power as a metaphorical hinge between East and West to gather various stable iconographies and mythologies whose meanings were mutable and could be reconceptualized to fit the Empire's Christian contexts. As didactic devices for translating complicated Christian dogma to the masses became increasingly accepted and necessary in the Byzantine Empire by the second half of the sixth century, Constantinople's transcultural environment facilitated a continuous supply of simplified motifs, like the Ancient of Days used to illustrate Christological preexistence, originating from Greco-Roman, European, Near Eastern, Semite, and Asiatic cultural sources. Depicting neither God the Father nor Christ the Son, the Ancient of Days motif -- an aged man with long hair and beard -- stood for the eternal, immaterial essence of the Christian god. As the Christian god had not been witnessed in a human existence on earth, the Ancient of Days motif can be understood as the syncretic outcome of various divine, eternal, prophetic, and philosophical types familiar throughout the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world. While no single definitive visual model exists for the Ancient of Days, numerous pagan, philosophical, and monotheistic textual sources mentioning either an aged male figure with white hair and beard who imparts wisdom, an entity called the Ancient of Days, or conceptual notions of eternity, exist as further testament to a syncretic contextual basis for the Byzantine motif. Understandably few examples of the pre-Iconoclasm Ancient of Days motif are known. However, the range of format, media, and geography displayed by the Italian diptych, Constantinopolitan mosaics and icon, and Cappadocian frescoes considered here are suggestive of a much larger tradition where the simplicity of the Ancient of Days motif allowed for adaptability into socio-cultural variants across the Byzantine provinces.Item Redefining la ofrenda: evolving conceptual elements in public institutions(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2017) Cottingham, Katrin Eril; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Todd LarkinLa Ofrenda, or the offering, is deeply embedded in Latino-American culture and is closely associated with Dias de Muertos, the Days of the Dead, a joyous celebration to commemorate the deceased. This thesis explores the history of La Ofrenda from its roots in ancient Mesoamerica to its subsequent merging with Spanish religious beliefs during the colonial Mexican period. Symbolic and ritualistic elements of La Ofrenda are examined to reflect the syncretic nature of the altar showing how it incorporates elements of both cultures. The thesis then analyzes the placement of La Ofrenda in the context of public institutions across the United States of America to discern if authentic characteristics remain when the altar is featured public venues. Each chapter addresses a different set of contrasting elements with the first chapter examining traditional aspects and materials vs. contemporary installations. Second, will consider the distinction between private and sacred displays and those featured in a public secular venue. Next, an effect on La Ofrenda by the very institutions that are trying to preserve the practice is examined with a look at contemporary artists who create highly conceptual Ofrendas reflecting the ever-changing aspects of Modern art, using a wide variety of nontraditional techniques such as computer technology, video and performance. These new methods of artistic representation are challenging and changing not only La Ofrenda, but what can be perceived as an Ofrenda. The question of the future of the display of La Ofrenda in a public setting is examined through these nontraditional altar representations and addresses the ramifications they present to the authenticity of La Ofrenda in conceptual installations.Item Contested terrain(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2016) Rodriguez, Horacio Rafael; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Josh DeWeeseAs a product of multiple cultures and identities, my art is used as a vehicle to explore the creation of my personal narrative within the hybrid cultures of the borderlands. I am interested in generative questions such as: What role does spoken and visual language play in the transmission of culture? How did my loss of language at a young age disconnect me from my culture? What symbols, synonymous with my culture, could be transformed and infused with new meaning? How can I overcome and transform racist language and ideologies that I have confronted in my life? What do I have to say about my past and do I want to form those memories in my work? My thesis exhibition is about the many borders I have crossed in my life. I carry many of these borders with me in my memories, and produce work about these physical and psychological borders through a variety of media. Clay, photo, installation and sculpture come together to create a body of work that allows me to navigate the borderlands that I occupy. The use of personal and pop imagery allows me to construct my story, facilitate the creation of my identity and push my audience to explore their identity.Item Assumed identity(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2015) Donovan, Daniel Edward; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Dean AdamsI use personal experience as a way of relating to others, through objects both found and made, the shared experience of being human. There is a fascinating universality in the ways so many can relate to nearly any experience despite it being general or specific. My artwork is an exploration of humanness and the ways in which we experience enculturation and assume identity of self within cultures. By assume identity, I refer to the way we adopt historical identity. The uniform and the group was a way in which I was being given the means to act a certain way through uniformity. Through my artwork I seek to examine several systems that condition action in children as well as adults.Item Remarks(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2001) Breton, HopiReference to material culture is the key point of departure for my work. I explore human sensibilities by interpreting our interaction with our material world. Ambiguous allusions to human inventions, or constructs, set up a dialogue between the viewer and my work. I appropriate both utilitarian objects and language in order to trigger a memory bank of common forms and expressions. Like tools, human expressions respond to human needs. I believe material culture human history encompasses all human creations. My work references an impulse to record human history through the collection of common objects and expressions. I abstract these objects and written expressions in order to create a sense of wonder. Ultimately, I compose a sense of human history by eliciting recognition of material culture while creating a new context for common forms and expressions. Rhythm, letters, words, and other "marks" inspire much of my work. My uses of invented symbols and signs ambiguously suggest language. I push the relationship between object and language by compounding these two elements within individual works. The cast iron in Marks, allows letter-like forms to take on three-dimensional qualities. The cast iron gives these flattened marks a strong physical presence, and alluded to industrial culture. Because of their linguistic format and gestures these hybrid objects read as components of a sentence or word. Similarly, Notation, Keys, and Re-Make read as recognizable sequences of objects. The use of text and signs as surface treatment on other forms also response to the relationship between language and object. The signs and text also allude to industrial material culture, suggesting power lines. frequencies, codes, and standards. The marks insinuate a utilitarian meaning, but an unaffected disregard to function and formal concerns determine my intention beyond simply reproducing manufacture objects.Item Doors, windows and other containers of thought(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1991) Jaeger, Timothy ScottBy taking external information, internalizing it, and re-presenting it within an art language, my work attempts to derive 'new understanding and insight regarding culture and the self. The difficulties of this life process are analogous to entering a maze whose chambers contain hidden truths. Each chamber holds multiple doors distorting and disorienting one’s choices in life. Metaphorically the maze represents culture with birth as its entrance and death as its exit. Each chamber is one’s past and each door is the present as well as passage into the future (symbolizing a transformation of consciousness). Mastery within the maze (culture) consists of questioning its parameters to establish truth from illusion.Item Midget rodeo(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2003) Ramos, Armando; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Michael PeedThe essence of my work is not entirely in the medium, but in human beings and their history. The differences in humanity are fascinating to me, and in my thesis show I want to bring this to light. My thesis show, the Midget Rodeo, explores the oddities of our kind. Our lives today are overrun by computer enhanced models and manicured lawns; I want to show that it is okay to be who we are. We have lost touch with real existence to such an extent that we don’t realize what is really important. Americans have created a whole hierarchy of values that are unrealistic. In contrast, the rodeo is an example of a more honest portrayal of ourselves. The midget rodeo is a large installation that fills the entire gallery. The rodeo is comprised of five distinct scenes that are setup in their own environments. One is a singing cowboy on a crude stage. It has the feeling of a makeshift stage made of bales of hay that gives you a feeling of traveling from county fair to county fair. Other scenes range from rodeo clowns to a corral of galloping fantasy horses. All of these are constructed in their own specific setting in the rodeo, for example, a corral or toy horses. All scenes come together to form a collective environment in which they are all present and the viewer is free to interact.