Commencement 2021: Alumni, Faculty & Student News
Edited by Evelyn Lincoln, Nancy Safian, and Micaela Camacho-Tenreiro
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Letter from the Chair, Evie Lincoln:
As I write, we are preparing our last Virtual Commencement, a surprisingly moving way to inject our digital goodbye with a dose of humanity. It’s been an exciting time to be part of a university, a moment of great promise for constructive change, as well as a time that has been challenging and sad. We have learned how integral human contact is to our feelings of belonging and well-being, and we have worked together to create a sense of that connection until we can all crowd into a room again, shoulder to shoulder. The post-pandemic classrooms will undoubtedly be new and different, as we take the measure of what we have learned during this turbulent year.
HIAA faculty, students, staff and alumni have shown their amazing resilience, curiosity, and drive to continue to learn together by adapting imaginatively to remote teaching and learning. As you will see below, undergraduates have participated in remote exhibitions of their work, put together informative career panels, and made new and lasting connections with our brilliant and valued alumni. Graduate students are finishing their dissertations and finding rewarding work in a world that is once again recognizing the importance of art and human expression to our visual landscape and cognitive experience. HIAA faculty carried on with traditional and new teaching resources, and have been exhibiting, writing, and publishing pathbreaking research which continues to be meaningfully recognized.
All in all, we can report that we survived 2020, are greeting 2021 with cautious curiosity, and have found that the virtual world has actually increased our contact with alumni, who joined us in number for the CAA virtual reception at the annual conference this February. We also hope you'll join us for a virtual alumni reception on Thursday, April 29 via Zoom.
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On Thursday, April 29, our department is hosting three virtual commencement-related events that we hope you can attend.
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12:30–1:30 pm, graduating senior concentrators in the History of Art and Architecture Honors Program will present their work. Please RSVP to Nancy_Safian@brown.edu to get a Zoom link.
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2:30–3:00 pm, virtual department commencement celebration honoring graduating seniors and PhD students. Families, friends and alumni are invited. https://brown.zoom.us/s/95838141367
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3:00–3:30 pm, alumni reception for all of our alumni (including the ones who are graduating this year!), their families and friends. https://brown.zoom.us/s/95838141367
For regular updates on University events, please go to the Commencement and Reunion pages of the Brown website.
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In Fall remote courses, faculty find
creative ways to exhibit student work online
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HIAA's introductory course, “A Global History of Art and Architecture,” was taught by professors Sheila Bonde and Lindsay Caplan. The course spans the history of art, architecture and material culture from cave paintings to 21st century installation art, exploring how art shapes and reflects cultural, social, religious, and political concerns throughout the world. With the help of TA Erica Kinias, they created an online exhibition featuring final projects and papers of their 165 students, ranging from George Nickol’s recreation of the Serpent Mound, built by the ancient Indigenous cultures of Ohio to Emily Zhang’s pastel recreation of Edgar Degas’ Dancers (above).
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HIAA visiting instructor Marina Tyquiengco (above) taught a remote course "Indigenous Art, Issues and Concepts." Students created their own Indigenous art exhibition as a final virtual project. Tyquiengco said the material was remarkably portable to the online world — thanks in part to students who have been willing to engage in spirited interactions despite the physical distance between them. Tyquiengco, who spent part of her childhood in Guam as a member of the CHamoru people, is now a curatorial assistant at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and a Ph.D. candidate in history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh.
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First Year Seminars (FYS) & Summer Courses
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This year the department is offering more first year seminars, and – because of dedensification due to the pandemic – some summer courses. Jeffrey Moser has created a new FYS he is offering this Spring: “Mountains and Waters: Art and Ecology in East Asia.” In the summer Evelyn Lincoln will be offering her FYS, “Illustrating Knowledge,” and Dietrich Neumann will be teaching an undergraduate seminar, “Mies van der Rohe: An Architect and his Time,” based on his newly published books about that architect. Image: Yu Ming, Mi Fu at Stone Worship, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
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Professors of the Practice will also teach summer courses this year: Julian von der Schulenburg will teach “Introduction to Studio,” and Craig Barton will offer “Constructing Memory: The Design of Monuments in the Public Realm,” about cities, people, and what we choose to recognize and commemorate through the construction of monuments and memorials in the public realm. Image: Civil Rights Memorial at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama
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Assistant Professor Gretel Rodríguez (top left) published two new articles. One, “Before and After Rome: The Incised Contours Technique in the Art of Gallia Narbonensis,” was published in the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal (TRAJ). This study reconsiders a series of Gallic and Roman monuments in southern France, highlighting the survival of indigenous traditions in the arts created after the Roman conquest of Gaul. The second, “New Observations on the Three Arches at Benevento,” was published in Selected Papers on Ancient Art and Architecture, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America. In it, Rodríguez explores the celebrated Arch of Trajan (114 CE) in combination with two lesser known arches from Benevento, showing how they were part of the same period of urban renewal the Italian city experienced in the early second century.
Professor Dietrich Neumann (bottom left) recently published two books, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion: An Accidental Masterpiece and a companion book, The Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe: One Hundred Texts since 1929. Both books came out in December 2020, published by Birkhaüser. In March, Professor Neumann delivered the Rosenblum Lecture at NYU's Art History Department where he discussed "Architecture, Art and Politics: Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion and its 'Clone' – 35 Years Later."
Professor of the Practice, Craig Barton's (bottom right) article "In Plain Site: The City as Monument" was published in the Spring 2021 issue of the journal Site/Lines. Professor Barton's article examined the Edmund Pettus Bridge and its evolution into one of Selma, Alabama's most important monuments commemorating the Voting Rights Movement.
Assistant Professor Jeffrey Moser (top right) published an article, “Learning with Metal and Stone: On the Discursive Formation of Jinshixue,” which appeared this year in the collection Powerful Arguments: Standards of Validity in Late Imperial China (Brill). The article is related to a larger book project, entitled Moral Depths: Making Antiquity in a Medieval Chinese Cemetery, that he will be researching further while he is on leave next year with a fellowship at the Center for the Advanced Study of Visual Arts in Washington, DC.
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Dr. Anne Markham Schulz, who has long been affiliated with this department, was interviewed for the Italian newspaper, il Sole 24 ore, and highly praised for her most recent book, The History of Venetian Renaissance Sculpture ca. 1400-1530.
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 Professor Lindsay Caplan spoke at the Science, Technology and Society (STS) Colloquium about Slovakian artist Tobias Putrih whose Macula Series (right) is inspired by geometric forms, modernist architecture, and his study of physics.
Professor Jeffrey Moser’s “The Awkward Object” used case studies from the RISD Museum to explore ways of helping students apprehend and articulate the awkwardness of objects for themselves, in a workshop jointly sponsored by RISD and the Sheridan Center.
Professor Itohan Osayimwese, on sabbatical in 2020-2021, served as the 2020-2021 Bruce Goff Chair of Creative Architecture at the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture, University of Oklahoma, where she presented her research on global modernism and postcolonial and decolonial methods in architectural history. She also shared her work at Princeton University, Wesleyan University, and Barnard College. In March 2021, she lectured in the 2021 SAH-GAHTC Teacher-to-Teacher Workshop: Backstage of the Global Histories Survey: Slow Looking, Translating, Listening, Activating. She was selected to serve as Interim Secretary of the Society of Architectural Historians and Councilor of the European Architectural History Network.
Professor Gretel Rodriguez addressed the Italian Studies Colloquium about her research on “The Production and Reception of Roman Honorific Arches.” She also co-chaired the session, Architectural Sculpture in the Ancient and Early Modern Periods, at this year’s annual conference of the College Art Association.
Professor Holly Shaffer recently won the American Institute of Indian Studies 2021 Edward Cameron Dimock, Jr. Prize in the Indian Humanities for her forthcoming book, Grafted Arts: The Marathas and the British in Western India, 1760-1820, which will be published by the Paul Mellon Centre in association with Yale University Press.
Congratulations HIAA affiliate faculty member, Tony Bogues, Director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice (CSSJ), for receiving a $4.9 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund a partnership with CSSJ, Williams College and the Mystic Seaport Museum that will use maritime history as a basis for studying historical injustices and generating new insights on the relationship between European colonization in North America, the dispossession of Native American land and racial slavery in New England. image: Whaleman, Joe Gomez, a Cape Verdean-born man who later settled in New London, CT. ©Mystic Seaport Museum, 2009.22.84
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Congratulations to our Newest PhD’s
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Suzy Duff ‘21 PhD completed her dissertation on "The Antwerp Saint Luke's Guild: Its Impact on Artistic Production and Identity, 1556-1663." Advisor: Jeffrey Muller.
Bill Skinner ’20 PhD wrote on mass housing and town planning in Barbados completing a dissertation titled: "The Afterlife of the Plantation? Mass Housing and Town Planning in Barbados, 1930-1970." Advisor: Itohan Osayimwese.
Josie Johnson '20 PhD completed her dissertation "All Eyes on Russia: Margaret Bourke-White's Early Soviet Photographs." She is currently the Capital Group Foundation Curatorial Fellow for Photography at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. Advisor: Doug Nickel.
Emily Monty ’21 PhD has written a dissertation on printmaking in Rome and Madrid: “Printmaking in the Rome of Philip II, 1556-1598.” Advisor: Evie Lincoln.
Erica Kinias ’21 PhD wrote a dissertation on "Building an Order: Architecture, Space, and Gender in Isabelle of France’s Rule of Sorores Minores." Advisor: Sheila Bonde.
Both Erica and Emily have been appointed to one year post-doctoral positions in our department as Dean’s Faculty Fellows for 2021/22, each teaching one course per semester.
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Text, Paratext, and Images is an exhibit curated at the RISD Museum by HIAA graduate student Kuan-Hung Liu with Kimia Rahnavardi (RISD MDes 2020, Interior Architecture, Adaptive Reuse). Kuan-Hung also presented a talk at the RISD Museum that explored the relationships between multiple forms of text and images seen in Qur’an manuscripts, historical Japanese prints and contemporary works. Dominic Bate recently published an article "Succeeding while Failing: The Tapestries of Jacob Christoph Le Blon that Never Were, 1725–1733," in The Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies. Koen Bulckens has been appointed Research Curator in Early Modern Art at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, and is currently preparing the museum reopening. Jonathan Duval was appointed Assistant Curator of Architecture & Design at the MIT Museum this past January. Rebecca Szantyr has received an appointment as Curatorial Assistant at the Clark Art Institute, managing the Manton Study Center for Works on Paper. Ciprian Buzila was awarded Honorable Mention for the "Romanian Student of the Year in North America Award" (graduate level), conferred by the Romanian Students League from Abroad (LSRS).
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Department Undergraduate Group
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The HIAA DUG was busy this year hosting three virtual events. In a panel featuring alumnae Natalia Miyar '97, (Architect and Designer), Niki Sanders '17 (Digital Product Strategist), and Joanna Lee '11 (Curatorial Assistant, Asian Arts Museum of San Francisco), students heard about their current careers and how their experiences in HIAA helped them in working out rewarding paths in the arts.
The DUG also organized two new workshops called “Art in Conversation.” The DUG leaders chose a time-based artwork for participants to study before the conversation so that on the day of the workshop students could meet to discuss their reactions. The first selections were Meditation on the Making of America (2019) by Kiyan Williams, and El Mundo (2013) by Rainer Ganahl. The second workshop focused on pieces at the MCA in Chicago, Mika Rottenberg's NoNoseKnows and Spaghetti Blockchain. Congratulations to the DUG for bringing students together for these amazing experiences!
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Congratulations to our honors students in History of Art and Architecture. This year six concentrators wrote a thesis or created an architectural design. They will give short presentations on their work, Thursday, April 29 at 12:30 pm, EST. Please contact Nancy_Safian@brown.edu for more information.
HIAA concentrator Caroline Callendar presented a talk at SUNY New Paltz’ Undergraduate Art History Symposium. Her talk was titled, “Gone But Not Forgotten: Damnatio memoriae and the (Un)dying Legacy of Nero and His Reign.” Her paper explored artistic representations of the Roman emperor Nero (r. AD 54-68), who was subjected to damnatio memoriae—the condemnation and erasure of his name and deeds from public memory.
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In the summer of 2020, HIAA sponsored its first Summer Alumni Mentoring Program, in which a group of 14 undergraduates were matched with 9 volunteer alumni of our department. The undergraduates worked with alumni on a variety of projects: exhibitions, online tours, publications, websites, research projects, and more over the summer months. The program was a resounding success, and we hope to do it again. If you’re interested in being a mentor, please contact Jeffrey_Moser@brown.edu.
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Divya Rao Heffley '10 PhD presented a virtual roundtable with graduate students in HIAA and at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities. Her talk, “Civically Engaged Public Art in Pittsburgh: People, Place, History, Memory” explored her work at the Office of Public Art in Pittsburgh, discussing engagements with artists to collaboratively shape the public realm and catalyze community-led change. Please contact Nancy_Safian@brown.edu if you'd like to see a recording of this wonderful talk.
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Julia Barber '18 PhD was recently featured in The Providence Monthly for a story about her work: "Providence Photographer Documents Her Obsession For Old Houses." She says, “So much of our cultural history – good and bad – is built into these structures, including systemic racism, class divides, and xenophobia, so for me, it’s not just about the beauty of the houses I find. In many ways, architecture is a useful lens to learn more about our history on a very personal level."
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Pascale Rihouet ’08 PhD contributed an article, “Giovanni Guerra’s Order of the Cavalcade (1589) and the Birth of Possesso: Prints in Sixtus V’s Rome,” to a volume she co-edited with Jennifer Mara DeSilva, Eternal Ephemera: The Papal Possesso and its Legacies in Early Modern Rome, CSRA 2020. She continues to teach for RISD, but has also taken up a new position at L'école internationale des métiers de la culture et du marché de l'art in Paris.
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Jessica Maier ‘96, Associate Professor of the History of Art at Mount Holyoke, has published a new book, The Eternal City: A History of Rome in Maps, in November with the University of Chicago Press. She was also awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2020.
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This past fall, Judith Tolnick Champa '79 MA curated Out of the Fray. The virtual exhibition features 12 contemporary visual artists, as well as 3 so-called "progenitor" artists – Robert Frank, Jasper Johns, and Faith Ringgold — whose interpretations of U.S. flags reflect the country’s own frays and unravelings in this unprecedented historical moment.
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Alumni Awards, Fellowships and Milestones
Congratulations to Selin Ozulkulu '19 on on receiving a Fulbright Scholarship. Under the auspice of the Fulbright Greece-Turkey Joint Research Award, she will be researching a pivotal figure for the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, and Greece: Theodor Makridi Bey (1872-1940). Makridi played a fundamental role for all three countries as an archaeologist, an art historian, and a museum professional. Selin will research Makridi’s museological ideals and practice both at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum and the Benaki Museum. This research is part of a larger project to understand how the development of new museums played a critical role in establishing cultural heritage and national identity for two emerging countries in the first half of the twentieth century. Gizem Dorter '03 successfully defended her dissertation, “The Upper Rumeli Kavak Fortress on the Bosphorus: From Hieron Byzantion to Imros Kalesi,” in December at Koc University, in Istanbul. Her study is the first scientific documentation of a relatively unknown monument in the northern Bosphorus region and its surrounding landscape. Monica Bravo '16 PhD, Assistant Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture at California College of the Arts received a Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Art in 2021 for her research, Silver Pacific: A Material History of Photography and its Minerals, 1840-1890. Keillor Irving ‘16, will begin his graduate studies at NYU's News and Documentary Program in Fall 2021.
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