Modern/Contemporary Art and Archaeology Program
Overview
The modern/contemporary program investigates the dynamic role played by art and visual culture in the transformations of the world since the late 18th century. The program is global in scope, covering not only the traditional metropolitan centers of modernism in Europe but also the outposts and countercurrents in the United States, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Our faculty explore art at the intersections of disparate or clashing groups-between aboriginal and settler cultures, exiles and host nations, racially privileged groups and their others. With the additions of Terry Smith, Okwui Enwezor, and Gao Minglu, the program now has deep strength in the art of contemporaneity in all its contradictions and disparities, which have become even more painfully visible since 9.11.01. Supported by a strong, interdisciplinary Cultural Studies Program and university-wide area studies programs for East Asia, Latin America, Russia and Eastern Europe, and Western Europe, the modern/contemporary program also capitalizes on the diverse strengths of a leading research university.
Modern/Contemporary Art and Archaeology faculty
Graduate faculty
*Indicates faculty who are eligible to supervise PhD students
*Gao Minglu
Contemporary Chinese art
Recent Publication: The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art
*Barbara McCloskey
20th-century German art; Exiles
Recent Publication: Artists in World War II
*Kirk Savage
19th- and 20th-century U.S. art; Public Monuments
Work in progress: Monument Wars: The Changing Memorial Landscape of Washington, D.C.
*Terry Smith
Contemporary Art and Architecture; Aboriginal/Australian Art
Works in progress: What Is Contemporary Art?; spectacle.architecture.iconomy.9.11.01
In press: The Architecture of Aftermath
Emeritus faculty
Aaron Sheon
Professor Emeritus, 19th-Century French art
Contributing faculty
Gretchen Bender
19th-Century German art
Josienne Piller
Museum Practice and Theory
*Frank Toker
Pittsburgh Architecture; Frank Lloyd Wright
Recent Publications: Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E.J. Kaufmann, and America's Most Extraordinary House (Knopf)
Forthcoming Book: Buildings of Pittsburgh (Society of Architectural Historians and Center for American Places, April 2007)
Dissertations completed since 1997
Carolyn Butler-Palmer
2006
Dissertation:
I Won't Play Primitive to Your Modern: The Art of David Neel (Kwagiutl), 1985-2000
Ivy (Schroeder) Cooper
1997
Disseration: Minimalism for the Masses: Public Sculpture Under the Federal Art-in-Architecture Program, 1972–1989
Currently:
Department Chair and Professor of Art History, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville IL
Anne Knutson
1997
Dissertation:
Art, Desire, and Empire: American Propaganda Posters of World War I
Alison McQueen
Dissertation:
The Modern Artist and the Old Master: The Reinvention of Rembrandt in France, 1850–1900
Currently: Associate Professor of Art History, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
Charles Pearo
2002
Dissertation:
Elizabeth Jane Gardner (1837–1922): Tracing the Construction of Artistic Identity
Currently: Professor at College Andrè-Laurendeau, Montreal
Sylvia Rhor
2004
Dissertation: Educating America: Murals in Chicago Public Schools, 1905–1943
Currently: Assistant Professor of Art, Carlow University, Pittsburgh PA
Leesa Rittelmann
2003
Dissertation:
Constructed Identities: The German Photobook from Weimar to the Third Reich
Currently:
Assistant Professor, SUNY Fredonia, Fredonia NY
Paul Scolari
2005
Dissertation:
Indian Warriors and Pioneer Mothers: American Identity and the Closing of the Frontier in Public Monuments, 1890-1930
Currently:
Historian and American Indian Liaison, National Park Service
Current graduate students
Cristina Albu
Research Area: The Shifting Hermeneutics of Site-Specific Installations
MA in progress: The Disavowal of Modernity via the Fusion of Art and Technology in Site-Specific Installations
Robert Bailey
Research Area: Contemporary Art and Critical Theory
MA in progress: Conceptual Art
Brianne Cohen
Research Area: Contemporary Art and Critical Theory
April Eisman
PhD in progress: Bernhard Heisig and the Cultural Politics of "East German" Art
Jessica Margaret Glaser
PhD in progress: The Pre-War Roots of Socialist Modernism in East German Design
Kristen Harkness
PhD in progress: "In a Certain Land:" Fairy Tales and Identity in Fin-de-Siècle Russian Art
Gerald Hartnett
Research area:Post-World War II American and European Art
Karla Huebner
PhD in progress: Eroticism, Identity, and Cultural Context: Toyen and the Czech Avant-Garde
Annie Kellogg-Krieg
PhD in progress: In the Service of the Nation(s): Medieval and Neo-Medieval Architecture in the Contested Terrain of Wrocław/Breslau, 1860-Present
Travis Nygard
PhD in progress: Modern American Art and Agriculture
Holly Paradis
PhD in progress: Sacred and Secular Images of Monasticism, Sainthood and Martyrdom in the Art of Edouard Manet
Cynthia Persinger
PhD in progress: The Politics of Style: Meyer Schapiro and the Methods of Art History
Natalia Rents
Research Area: Contemporary Art, Visual Culture/History of Photography
Miguel Rojas-Sotelo
Research Area: Contemporary Art and Critical Theory
PhD in progress: Cultural Maps, Networks and Flow in Contemporary Art. A Case Study: Third World Art and the Havana Biennale