Student Work
Art History Capstone Projects
| Author | Title | Link | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rebecka Ibarra | Conversion and Convergence in Hilma af Klint’s The Dove Series | capstone | 2022 |
| Nicole Salazar | Nostalgia Andina and Recuperating History: 1920s Indigenismo and Contemporary Indigenous | capstone | 2022 |
| Mali Cassak | A Most Sinister Deprivation: Memory and Trauma in the work of Mona Hatoum | capstone | 2022 |
| Puze Wang | Imagining Possibilities: Heterotopia in the works of Cao Fei and Chen Chieh-jen | capstone | 2022 |
| Jiwen Fan | Transcending the Corporeal: Genders and Sexes at the Tillya Tepe Necropolis | capstone | 2022 |
| Chloe McWhirt | Architectural Exposure: The Deconstructive Value of Gordon Matta-Clark’s Photographic Work | capstone | 2021 |
| Felipe Fernandez | Tools of Mourning: Doris Salcedo, Alfredo Jaar, and the Archives of Memory | capstone | 2021 |
| Nora Stewart | “Ever seething underneath!”: Ghada Amer’s Hybridized Écriture Feminine | capstone | 2021 |
| Essie Little | Cultural Implications of Diaphanous and “Wet-Look” Dress in Classical Greek Art | capstone | 2020 |
| Jianda Wang | EMBODYING RESISTANCE: THE PERFORMANCE ART OF MA LIUMING, ZHANG HUAN, AND HE YUNCHANG | capstone | 2020 |
| Joanna Seifter | Good and Bad Mothers: Giovanni Segantini’s Dichotomous Representation of Women in Post-Risorgimento Italy | capstone | 2020 |
| Maya Varma | NALINI MALANI’S MEDEA PROJECT: GENDER AND NATIONHOOD IN POSTCOLONIAL INDIA | capstone | 2020 |
| Eleanor Beaird | Nostalgia and the Colonial Gaze in Gertrude Käsebier’s Photography of Native Americans | capstone | 2019 |
| Ellie Hohulin | Marcel Mariën: Between Belgian Surrealism and Situationism | capstone | 2019 |
| Sebastian Eising | THE VERNACULAR EMBODIED: CONCEPTUAL ART, THE QUOTIDIAN, AND PHENOMENOLOGY IN THE WORK OF SIAH ARMAJANI | capstone | 2019 |
| Stephanie Rice-Hoffner | Ellsworth Kelly: Loving Raillery | capstone | 2019 |
| Andy Kaesermann | From B-boys to Gold Leaf Gundam: Paintings of Tenmyouya Hisashi | capstone | 2016 |
| Kasey McMaster | The Maid and the Servant: Class Mobility in the Representation of Working-Class Women in Berthe Morisot’s Paintings | capstone | 2016 |
| Camille Erickson | Toward a Transnational Queer Futurity: The Photography of Catherine Opie, Zanele Muholi, and Jean Brundrit | capstone | 2014 |
| Maya Aguayo Schmidt-Feng | “Making Whiteness Strange” in the Post-Apartheid Art of Candice Breitz and Kendell Geers | capstone | 2014 |
| Michelle Lee | Capturing Queerness: The Re-presentation and Performativity of Asian American Sexualities | capstone | 2014 |
Macalester students can enroll in any entry-level art studio or art history course—no experience is required. Classes are taught by professional artists and scholars, and our urban location allows classes to take field trips to many galleries and major museums. Macalester students are in demand as interns at the Twin Cities’ nonprofit arts organizations, including the Northern Clay Center, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, the Minnesota History Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Walker Art Center.
Advanced students may have opportunities to collaborate on research projects with professors, present at national conferences, and attend specialized workshops and seminars. Students receive the background and skills they need to win competitive opportunities such as an internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice or attendance at an undergraduate printmaking conference at Tokyo Fine Arts University.
Work-study opportunities in the art and art history department provide students with hands-on skills, which may directly benefit those wishing to go on in art or art history. (See the After Macalester section for an impressive list of graduate programs, jobs, fellowships, and grants won by our alumni.)
Studio art students can participate in an annual juried exhibit held in the gallery. Each spring, art history majors present original capstone research projects in a public lecture while the studio art students’ capstone project consists of an exhibition of original artwork in the Law Warschaw Gallery.
Art Alliance
This student-run organization plans special art-related activities for those with a common interest in art. It administers the Drawing Co-op, an informal no-cost opportunity to draw the figure from live models.
Art History Club
The Art History Club is a student-run organization that plans special activities for art history majors, minors and any interested non-majors. The club meets several times per semester to visit galleries and museum exhibitions, watch films, and carry on discussions about art.