Presentation Abstracts

The Centennial Hall was built for the 1913 centennial celebration of the defeat of Napoleon in an effort to define the city of Wroclaw, then Breslau, as a place of importance and prestige. As the place from which the call to arms against Napoleon came a link between the city and a significant moment in history created one compelling reason for the construction of the building.

A modern staple of Russian identity in craft is the lacquer miniature. These crafts are typically small boxes, such as snuffboxes, powder boxes, and cigarette cases, which are covered in paper-mache and painted with miniature scenes of folk life, fairytales, and traditional songs. These crafts have been in production for nearly one hundred years, starting with the very early rise of communism and flourishing in the Soviet era.

Life-size screen projection of a collection of black and white photographs of an empress dowager and a marble bust of a queen are two feature works in two exhibition: Power Play: China’s Empress Dowager in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington D.C. (September 24, 2011-January 29, 2012) and Royal Treasures from the Louvre: Louise XIV to Marie-Antoinette in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (November 17, 2012 – March 31, 2013).

At 11:30 am, on a sweltering June morning in 1994, a nude Zhang Huan sat down in a run-down public restroom in Beijing’s East Village, covered in a mixture fish oil and honey. Immediately swarmed by flies, Zhang maintained that position with perfect stillness for an hour, despite the stench and stifling 100° heat. Zhang allowed the flies to cover his body and did not react even as they entered his ears and nose, drawn to the viscous liquid coating his skin.

The students hovered around the small man, his Portuguese accent lilting as he showed them the space they would be making art in. The room was divided into cubicles with flossy white cloth and a mellow orange light that pulsated, creating an embryonic space. Outside, the cold, damp winds of November breezed through the coastal town of Kingston, Rhode Island. Helio Oiticica, a native of Brazil, was out of his element, and not just because of the weather.

On September 11, 2001 at 8:42 am, United Flight 93 departed from Newark Liberty International Airport heading to San Francisco International Airport. Forty-six minutes into the flight, the route was redirected toward Washington D.C. as the four hijackers on board overtook the cockpit. The thirty-three passengers and seven crew members valiantly attempted to regain control of the plane before the aircraft crashed into an open field in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania at 10:03 am.

The Chinese Nationality Room (CNR) in the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning was one of the first nationality rooms to be built, dedicated in October 1939. These rooms were meant to represent minority groups in Pittsburgh, celebrating their cultures through the creation of a classroom that would embody aspects of each heritage through furniture and décor.

On May 1, 1936, the streets of Manhattan’s garment district were flooded with over forty thousand Leftist sympathizers in observance of the annual May Day Parade for workers. Many of those involved in the procession carried banners or created ephemeral performance pieces to advocate for worker’s rights. None of these projects, however, were quite as dramatic as the piece that radical Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros and his Experimental Workshop designed for the parade.

Saint Cyriakus is a small convent located in the rural town of Gernrode, Germany. It was constructed in the tenth century under the direct patronage of Margrave Gero, an aristocrat with close ties to the Ottonian dynasty of Holy Roman Emperors. Although Saint Cyriakus exemplifies early Ottonian architectural style, it introduces an innovative architectural element: the Empore, a raised gallery space located in the western end of some basilica-plan churches.