Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: photography
- Creators: Fahlman, Betsy
Description
By focusing on photojournalists for LIFE and Ladies’ Home Journal, I investigate mental health care in state institutions located in America during the Great Depression and World War II immediately prior to the great deinstitutionalization that began in the 1950s. Relying upon scholars of medical humanities, social theory, disability studies, feminist studies, the history of psychiatry, and the history of art, I consider the iconography used to represent mental illness in photography during the first half of the twentieth century to explore the ways mentally ill individuals were presented as disordered and lacking humanity. I explore the didactic nature of both photography and film, emphasizing how the artists and directors imbued their mediums with medical credibility and authority. The photographs of Alfred Eisenstaedt, Jerry Cooke, and Esther Bubley from the 1930-40s reveal the state of mental health care in America during the Great Depression and World War II. I will investigate the stereotypes seen in representations of mental illness in photographs and how these depictions shaped and were in dialogue with popular films like Spellbound (1945), The Snake Pit (1948), The Three Faces of Eve (1957), and Marnie (1964). As a point of contrast to the images and films representing mental illness, I examine depictions of healthy people in mental health clinics during this time. Finally, I offer four examples of public, contemporary art, including House for a Gordian Knot (2013), Bloom (2013), 1000 Shadows (2013), and Faces of Mental Health Recovery (2013), that explore mental illness to illustrate the enduring legacy of the iconography and stereotypes represented in the photography and films explored in the first half of this dissertation.
ContributorsTaggart, Vriean Diether (Author) / Fahlman, Betsy (Thesis advisor) / Codell, Julie (Committee member) / Lussier, Mark (Committee member) / Moore, Sarah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This project is a feminist exploration of the muse as a cultural icon, and of the relationship dynamic between artists and their muses, using specific twentieth century photographers and their models as examples. The pairs discussed are Lee Miller and Man Ray, Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, and Charis Wilson and Edward Weston.
ContributorsFanguy, Rachel Marie (Author) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Thesis director) / Fahlman, Betsy (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
In the 1960s, Minimal Art introduced a radical insistence on the bodily immediacy of the experience. Since then, artists have increasingly focused on the creation of immersive experiences, resulting in spectacular installations that fill museums, galleries, and public spaces. In this thesis, I argue that the artistic shift toward experience-based work stems from an overall revaluation of the experience as a central component of contemporary life in Western societies. Referencing sociological and economic theories, I investigate the evolving role of the art museum in the twenty-first century, as well as the introduction of new technologies that allow for unique sensorial encounters. Finally, I situate this development in both art historical and theoretical context, examining the relationship between critical distance and immersion and challenging the notion that art must become spectacle to compete with the demands of a capitalist culture.
ContributorsCorrales, Brittany (Author) / Fahlman, Betsy (Thesis advisor) / Hoy, Meredith (Committee member) / Lineberry, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
During the politically charged period between the 1950s and 1970s in the United States, Nancy Newhall emerged as an important advocate for open space. She began traveling to the West which encouraged her dedication to land preservation and invigorated her enthusiasm for photography. Newhall was already a respected curator and author addressing the communicative roles of photographs. After spearheading groundbreaking museum retrospectives of contemporary photographers she expanded her artistic vison to include conservation activism. The notable photographers, scholars, writers, and politicians with whom she collaborated often overshadowed her contributions, and they have been under celebrated until recently. My project studies her efforts on a quintessential Sierra Club publication from 1960. While considering her book titled This Is The American Earth I was led to insightful explorations of her unique approach to contextualizing photographs. My investigations revealed the impact that the work of Nancy Newhall had on land preservation, alongside her prolonged influence on the acceptance of photography as fine art and a resilient device of communication. In This Is The American Earth her calculated, inspired approach, attaching text to photos conveyed stirring messages to readers and forwarded an innovative use of a genre that the Sierra Club willingly embraced. Working with its president and Ansel Adams, she edited, wrote, and published several popular illustrated volumes which brought an interpretation of open space into American living rooms. Her efforts produced iconic picture books that remain memorable examples of the mid-20th century conservation movement.
ContributorsWyman, Kari (Author) / Fahlman, Betsy (Thesis advisor) / Brown, Claudia (Committee member) / Serwint, Nancy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
This thesis analyzes contemporary photographer Jeff Wall and his representations of cultural memory and domesticity. Wall both references and mimics historically and culturally significant symbols of canonical painting to comment on the role of art incontemporary society. In the coming chapters, this thesis places two of Wall’s photographs in conversation with paintings by Édouard Manet, Tintoretto, and Willem deKooning to examine how Wall deploys representation of domestic spaces to comment on the entwinement of female bodies, sexuality, and economic exchange. Wall’s photographs addressed in this thesis construct complex visual narratives that reflect upon the challenges to representational norms and conventions that were carried out by Manet, and deKooning in their own historical moments. Rather than offering a chronological account of Jeff Wall’s artistic trajectory, the thesis examines Wall’s critique of ingrained societal perceptions of women and the experience of womanhood itself through case studies of A View From an Apartment and The Destroyed Room and relevant paintings by Manet, Tintoretto, and deKooning. This thesis analyzes these photographs and paintings in their respective historical and cultural contexts to emphasize the parallels that Wall draws between violence and ideas of women as capital.
ContributorsMcCollum, Gabriella Josephine (Author) / Hoy, Meredith (Thesis advisor) / Fahlman, Betsy (Committee member) / Cohen, Liz (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023