Articles by Meghan Bissonnette
Visual Arts News, 2006
Feature article on the Women's Collective and Women's File at the Nova Scotia College of Art and ... more Feature article on the Women's Collective and Women's File at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD).
In the 1940s, David Smith, David Hare, Herbert Ferber, Ibram Lassaw, Seymour Lipton and Theodore ... more In the 1940s, David Smith, David Hare, Herbert Ferber, Ibram Lassaw, Seymour Lipton and Theodore Roszak were part of a new generation of sculptors working in New York who used welding and other direct-metal techniques to make abstract sculpture. In the 1950s, Abstract Expressionist sculpture was praised for its vitality and inventiveness, yet beginning in the 1960s these works gradually fell out of favour. The sole exception is David Smith, who has been upheld as the only sculptor of merit from this period. This study will contend that the suppression of Abstract Expressionist sculpture is largely due to Clement Greenberg and the lasting impact of his writings. Furthermore, his critique of the new sculpture has shaped subsequent assessments by Michael Leja, Kirk Varnedoe, and Edward Lucie-Smith. It has also contributed to the belief, still current today, that Abstract Expressionism is a movement of painters with no comparable counterparts in sculpture.
Exhibition Reviews by Meghan Bissonnette
Journal of Visual Art Practice, 2019
Review of Margaret Kilgallen: that's where the beauty is at the Aspen Art Museum (12 January - 9 ... more Review of Margaret Kilgallen: that's where the beauty is at the Aspen Art Museum (12 January - 9 June 2019) and traveling to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland (24 January - 17 May 2020).
Art Inquiries, 2018
Review of the exhibition "Her Paris: Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism" at the Denver Art... more Review of the exhibition "Her Paris: Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism" at the Denver Art Museum, October 22, 2017 - January 15, 2018.
Essays by Meghan Bissonnette
Other by Meghan Bissonnette
This session will explore different approaches, innovations, and challenges in teaching online in... more This session will explore different approaches, innovations, and challenges in teaching online in the visual arts. As universities look to expand offerings of online courses and programs in order to compete for the increasing demands for online education, instructors are faced with the unique set of challenges posed by teaching online and hybrid courses. Potential topics could include, but are not limited to: using new technologies, apps, or programs; successes and challenges in developing online classes or programs; transforming a face-to-face class to a hybrid or fully online class; strategies to engage online students; developing course standards and training for faculty; examples of assessments; and/or use of open educational resources. Papers will be shorter in length (10–15 minutes) to allow more time for discussion. The panel is intended to provide an exchange of ideas with specific strategies that attendees can use in their own classes.
At the time of his death in 1965 at the age of 59, American sculptor David Smith was widely recog... more At the time of his death in 1965 at the age of 59, American sculptor David Smith was widely recognized as one of the greatest sculptors of his generation. By then, he had been honoured with a mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, and had represented the United States at Documenta and major biennales at Venice (on two occasions) and São Paolo. Countless studies have analyzed Smith’s career and artistic development, but very little has been written on the published criticism of his work or its larger impact on our understanding of this artist. In this dissertation I examine the historiographic reception of his sculpture from 1938, the year of his first solo exhibition, until 1971 when Rosalind Krauss published Terminal Iron Works, the first monograph on Smith. I trace this reception from the early focus on Smith’s biography and working methods (the biographical paradigm), to the later interest in formal analysis (the formalist paradigm). I further analyze this criticism in the context of artistic developments in the 1940s and 1950s, namely Abstract Expressionist painting and sculpture. In the process, I draw out common themes, tropes and narratives that appear in the criticism on Smith and the Abstract Expressionists. To do so, I engage in a close textual analysis of the exhibition reviews, magazine and newspaper articles, and catalogue essays published during this period. I demonstrate that this reception is culturally, socially, and ideologically informed. References to Smith’s biography, working methods, materials, and exceptionalism all point to the aims, desires and interests of the writers, but also to the influence of social and cultural factors. Ultimately, I intend to provide a revisionist history of Smith’s work that draws out the mythology that this reception contributed to—a mythology that continues to shape our understanding of mid-twentieth-century American art.
This session invites papers that explore the intersections between labour and art in Western and ... more This session invites papers that explore the intersections between labour and art in Western and non- Western art from the late 19th century to the present. Developments over the last several decades, such as the introduction of post-Fordism and precarious labour, the rise of the artist and academic as cultural workers in the New Economy, and the 2008 financial crisis, have afforded an opportunity to re-examine labour in/as art. Contemporary projects by Santiago Sierra, Steve McQueen, Ai Weiwei, and others, demonstrate a sustained interest in labour as a subject of art. Furthermore, there is a need to examine these practices in a historical context, where the preoccupation with labour can be traced back to the elevation of the working class in the paintings of the French Realists, or to American artists’ participation in labour unions and WPA projects during the New Deal era. Papers may focus on individual works, artists or movements, or may provide a cross-cultural or cross-historical analysis. Possible topics include, but are not limited to: images of labour in art, artists who position themselves as workers, artistic interventions into sites of work and labour, and artists’ involvement in labour unions.
Conferences by Meghan Bissonnette
This paper explores the apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic landscape in visual culture, with a focus on... more This paper explores the apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic landscape in visual culture, with a focus on three recent apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic films: The Book of Eli, The Road, and 2012. These images of the Earth in ruins have important antecedents in European and American painting in the 19th century, particularly images of the picturesque and sublime. Images of man overpowered by nature or of nostalgic ruins by artists such as J.M.W. Turner, John Constable, and Gustave Doré, provide a starting point for examining the contemporary apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic landscape. Some scholars argue that these “eco-apocalyptic films” are an expression of current anxieties and fears over climate change and the deterioration of the planet. Drawing on film reviews, discourses on ruins, and a careful visual analysis of these images, I instead examine how the visual imagery of these films functions in a way similar to 19th century precedents—as a means to contemplate loss, change, and the passage of time. Rather than addressing issues of climate change and environmental degradation, these works represent the legacy of “ruin lust” in the 21st century. They also represent a degree of complacency around issues of climate change and environmental disaster.
There is a growing body of research that explores the importance of art for aging individuals; ho... more There is a growing body of research that explores the importance of art for aging individuals; however, many of these studies focus on art therapy for the elderly. Very little has been written on contemporary artists who investigate aging in their art practices. In her book on art photography, France-based scholar Anca Cristofovici explains that such works that deal with aging resist sentimental depictions, and are instead transformative because they “construct visual analogs of psychic space and inner experiences.” Drawing on Cristofovici’s study, I will analyze how aging is explored in photo-works by three contemporary artists: John Coplans, Suzy Lake, and Cindy Sherman. All three put themselves in front of the camera to explore personal and cultural attitudes towards the aging body. Drawing on visual analysis, interviews, and artists’ writings, my paper will focus on three distinct projects: Suzy Lake’s Beauty at a Proper Distance series (2001-2002); Sherman’s society portraits (2008); and Coplans’ black and white photographs of his nude body (1984-2003).
Lake’s large-scale photographs appear at first to be glamour shots, but up close one can see the imperfections that accompany the aging process: dried and feathered lipstick, oily skin, enlarged pores, and facial hair. She uses the tropes of advertising to present a critique of social attitudes towards aging and beauty. Cindy Sherman utilizes costumes, makeup and prosthesis to present herself as fictitious aging socialites posed in front of elaborate and lavish settings. Her photographs foreground the sadness of these women’s situation, as they have become more obsolete with age. Coplans, who passed away in 2003 at the age of 83, took black and white photographs of his aging body beginning in 1984. Posed in front of a neutral white background, Coplans’ figure appears fragmented with his head and other parts cut out of the picture; moreover, in many photographs, extreme close up views depict the tiniest of details such as hairs, moles, wrinkles, and age spots. His works go beyond mere documenting as they simultaneously recall and reject the tradition of the classical nude that came out of Ancient Greek art.
I will argue that, despite the diversity in these series, they are connected by the use of the grotesque as an artistic strategy. Furthermore, these works both attract and repel the viewer with the humour and satire that underlie these depictions of aging. In doing so, they represent a complex experience of aging that resists being idealized or sentimentalized. Instead these works reveal that contemporary art that addresses the aging body can be a potentially rich source for scholars in the field of Aging Studies.
Teaching Documents by Meghan Bissonnette
ARTH 3123, Art of the Apocalypse. This was an interdisciplinary upper-level undergraduate course ... more ARTH 3123, Art of the Apocalypse. This was an interdisciplinary upper-level undergraduate course taught in the Department of Art at Valdosta State University in Spring 2017. This course examines how the apocalypse has been imagined in art, film, photography, print and digital media. Course topics include representations of the biblical apocalypse, the rapture, millennialism, ruins, nuclear war, zombies, eco-apocalypse, post-apocalypse, dystopias, aliens and cyborgs.
Papers by Meghan Bissonnette
International Journal of Higher Education
The purpose of our project was to explore the explicit or implicit engagement of faculty members ... more The purpose of our project was to explore the explicit or implicit engagement of faculty members across the curriculum in teaching the entrepreneurial mindset. We begin by defining entrepreneurship on a spectrum, recognizing the contextual nature and psychological development associated with entrepreneurial thinking. We developed a self-report survey containing a combination of quantitative and qualitative items to determine faculty member knowledge of entrepreneurship and their engagement in teaching elements of the entrepreneurial mindset. We surveyed the faculty at a primarily teaching university in the western United States. Sixty-four faculty members (~20%) with representation from across the disciplines completed our survey. We found constrained knowledge of entrepreneurship, indications of teaching elements of the entrepreneurial mindset, and approaches to assignments that were limited in scope for fostering entrepreneurial thinking. The implications of our research are...
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Articles by Meghan Bissonnette
Exhibition Reviews by Meghan Bissonnette
Essays by Meghan Bissonnette
Other by Meghan Bissonnette
Conferences by Meghan Bissonnette
Lake’s large-scale photographs appear at first to be glamour shots, but up close one can see the imperfections that accompany the aging process: dried and feathered lipstick, oily skin, enlarged pores, and facial hair. She uses the tropes of advertising to present a critique of social attitudes towards aging and beauty. Cindy Sherman utilizes costumes, makeup and prosthesis to present herself as fictitious aging socialites posed in front of elaborate and lavish settings. Her photographs foreground the sadness of these women’s situation, as they have become more obsolete with age. Coplans, who passed away in 2003 at the age of 83, took black and white photographs of his aging body beginning in 1984. Posed in front of a neutral white background, Coplans’ figure appears fragmented with his head and other parts cut out of the picture; moreover, in many photographs, extreme close up views depict the tiniest of details such as hairs, moles, wrinkles, and age spots. His works go beyond mere documenting as they simultaneously recall and reject the tradition of the classical nude that came out of Ancient Greek art.
I will argue that, despite the diversity in these series, they are connected by the use of the grotesque as an artistic strategy. Furthermore, these works both attract and repel the viewer with the humour and satire that underlie these depictions of aging. In doing so, they represent a complex experience of aging that resists being idealized or sentimentalized. Instead these works reveal that contemporary art that addresses the aging body can be a potentially rich source for scholars in the field of Aging Studies.
Teaching Documents by Meghan Bissonnette
Papers by Meghan Bissonnette
Lake’s large-scale photographs appear at first to be glamour shots, but up close one can see the imperfections that accompany the aging process: dried and feathered lipstick, oily skin, enlarged pores, and facial hair. She uses the tropes of advertising to present a critique of social attitudes towards aging and beauty. Cindy Sherman utilizes costumes, makeup and prosthesis to present herself as fictitious aging socialites posed in front of elaborate and lavish settings. Her photographs foreground the sadness of these women’s situation, as they have become more obsolete with age. Coplans, who passed away in 2003 at the age of 83, took black and white photographs of his aging body beginning in 1984. Posed in front of a neutral white background, Coplans’ figure appears fragmented with his head and other parts cut out of the picture; moreover, in many photographs, extreme close up views depict the tiniest of details such as hairs, moles, wrinkles, and age spots. His works go beyond mere documenting as they simultaneously recall and reject the tradition of the classical nude that came out of Ancient Greek art.
I will argue that, despite the diversity in these series, they are connected by the use of the grotesque as an artistic strategy. Furthermore, these works both attract and repel the viewer with the humour and satire that underlie these depictions of aging. In doing so, they represent a complex experience of aging that resists being idealized or sentimentalized. Instead these works reveal that contemporary art that addresses the aging body can be a potentially rich source for scholars in the field of Aging Studies.