Eve Nicholson-Smith, Mom 1984, 2009. Image by Kim Clarke.                   

 

Bon à Tirer Acknowledgements and Introduction

From the Editorial Board by Amy Wallace, Dasha Grigorieva, Megan McCall, Sarah Mullen, and Krista Schnella

 

The editorial board is delighted to introduce the third issue of the Department of Visual Arts’ student-run journal, Bon à Tirer: The Western Undergraduate Journal of Art History and Visual Culture. This year’s contributors investigate a wide array of art historical and contemporary issues concerning visual culture.

In this issue, Sarah Mullen looks at Richard Serra’s Titled Arc to illuminate its formal and ideological elements that were a response to its surrounding environment of New York City in the 1980s. Krista Schnella examines the international influences of University College at the University of Toronto and discusses how these influences prompted the decision to build the college in the Romanesque Revival style. Drawing on the psychological literature examining persuasion, Matthew S. Trueman offers an analysis of the marketing techniques of Yves Klein in relation to his work The Void. Amy Wallace takes an intimate look at the life and work of Louise de Kiriline Lawrence, one of Canada’s most respected ornithologists and nature writers, to speculate on the significance of the connection that the two share through place. Uniting art criticism and film theory, Wendy Birt reveals how audiences of the 1989 film Batman unknowingly become transformed from film viewer into art critic. Amanda Aikens contributes a discussion of the work of Jane Ash Poitras, situating her art within the wider topics and concerns of Indigenous assimilation, spirituality, culture, and hope. Megan Knox provides an in-depth look at King Ludwig II of Bavaria’s motivations to build Schloss Neuschwanstein and how the monarch’s romantic longing for the Middle Ages is reflected in its design. Sarah Nantais negotiates the tension between site-specificity and gallery administration through an investigation of graffiti art. Lastly, Andrea Wishart offers an alternative consideration of the relationship between the institutions of art and site-specific art through an examination of work by Michelangelo Pistoletto and the earthworks of Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson.

We would like to thank a number of individuals and groups who have lent their time, energy, and support to the creation of this undergraduate journal. We extend our sincere gratitude to the Arts & Humanities Student Donation Fund Committee for their careful consideration of our proposal and for the funds to publish this year’s issue. Our sincere thanks also go to Professor Cody Barteet, our faculty supervisor, whose expert guidance is much valued by our student editorial board. Thank you also to Professor Kirsty Robertson, who initiated the journal and offered us her advice when we began work on the publication in the fall. We are also incredibly grateful for the support of the Department Chair, Professor Patrick Mahon, as well as of the Artlab Director, Professor Susan Edelstein, for their efforts in integrating the journal with the always much-anticipated Annual Juried Exhibition and Practicum exhibition openings. We are particularly grateful this year to Professor Edelstein for her aid in organizing our exhibition, “Bon à Tirer: The Blueline Edition,” in the Artlab Concourse Gallery. Thanks are also due to Andrew Gugan and Marlene Jones for their assistance with advertising the publication and to the professors who promoted the journal to their students and kindly invited the editors into their classrooms to announce this publishing opportunity. We are also very appreciative of Andrew Gugan’s technical help with the online publication.

The editorial board is tremendously pleased with this year’s cover image, Mom 1984 (2009), by Eve Nicholson-Smith. We extend our sincere thanks to the artist for her cooperation and to Kim Clarke for photographing the image. Thanks are also due to the artists and galleries who gave us permission to reproduce their images in the hardcopy version of the journal.

Most importantly, thank you to the writers whose hard work is featured in this year’s journal. Your unique arguments, compiled together here, create a very strong voice that speaks to the high level of scholarship maintained in our department. The editorial board has sincerely enjoyed and learned from engaging with each paper included in this year’s journal, and we are very pleased that this publication will enable you to share your academic insights with a wider audience.

 

Amy Wallace, Dasha Grigorieva, Megan McCall, Sarah Mullen, and Krista Schnella
Bon à Tirer Editorial Board, 2009/2010

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