Reinterpreting Coatlicue : the Sculptural Narrative of Defeat at the Shrine of Huitzilopochtli

"Images of the decapitated, dismembered female warrior Coyolxauhqui, a main character in the Mexica mythology of Huitzilopochtli, figured prominently in Imperial Mexica sculptural campaigns at the Templo Mayor. However, monoliths of a terrifying, dismembered female from the shrine have traditionally been identified as Huitzilopochtli’s nurturing mother Coatlicue, or permutations of goddesses. Such studies do not adequately address why these sculptures depict mutilated beings whose characteristics are antithetical to Coatlicue’s appropriate female behavior depicted in myths and images"

Lonnie Holley exploration and analysis of his artworks in two settings : the yard and the museum

The contemporary artist, Lonnie Holley, creates assemblage sculptures using found objects that he then places in his multi-layered yard art environment. With the rise in prestige of folk art, many art galleries and museums have displayed the works of Holley, removing them from the yard art environment and placing them in the gallery setting. This paper addresses how meaning changes when the context of Holley’s artworks changes.

Georges de La Tour : the Status of Scholarship

Seventeenth-century French painter, Georges de La Tour, was a forgotten artist. His rediscovery in the nineteenth century set off a firestorm of research and a hunt to find more works by the artist. One problem after another arose as scholars attempted to define the artist by his works, his style, and the remnants of his personal history. There remains a volume of contradictory reports, authentication issues, and new scientific techniques which continue to influence study on the artist.

Surréalisme Sous-L’Eau : science and surrealism in the early films and writings of Jean Painlevé

A French biologist who moved in Surrealist circles, Jean Painlevé began making films about underwater creatures in 1927, and by 1982 had created over two hundred films on a broad range of natural, scientific, and political subjects. His underwater films remain the most ethereal and poetic works in his oeuvre, and he specifically used cinema to capture the mystery and wonder of nature.

Pollock is…Crouching in My Pants” : Claes Oldenburg’s Ray Gun as Feminist Critique of the Abstract Expressionist Ego

The “seminal” piece of Claes Oldenburg’s Ray Gun art is Empire (Papa) Ray Gun (1959), a paper maché sculpted gun resembling an erect phallus and swollen testicles. After Empire (Papa) Ray Gun, Oldenburg defined Ray Gun art as anything with a right angle—a form representing the angle at which a handgun’s barrel and handle meet and/or where the erect penis and hanging testicles meet. The forms and tenants of Ray Gun continued into Oldenburg’s later installations, performances, and soft and monumental sculptures.

Out of the ordinary : Anne Ryan and collage

Anne Ryan (1889-1954) was an active member of New York’s vibrant avant-garde art community during the tumultuous period marked by World War II. Ryan participated in the famed 1951 “Ninth Street Show,” and was an early member of Betty Parsons’s legendary stable of artists. She is not widely known today, however, and her influence is rarely acknowledged. Ryan is primarily known for her abstract collages—works that are frequently linked to Abstract Expressionism.

The Foundations of the Artists’ Community of Estes Park

"Estes Park lies in a beautiful location amongst the Rocky Mountains, sixty-five miles from Denver. Settlers came to the region in the second half of the nineteenth century. Among them in 1898 was artist R.H. Tallant who became a prominent landscape painter of the Rocky Mountains. Settling shortly after him was well-known painter Charles Partridge Adams. While Tallant and Adams founded the artists’ community, renowned artist Birger Sandzén and soon to be popular Dave Stirling were the mainstays pushing the artists’ community to new heights through the 1920s and 1930s. The establishment of a thriving artists’ community by Tallant, Adams, Sandzén and Stirling made Estes Park a recognizable place for attracting numerous artists throughout its history"