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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.

Alli is a senior completing a double major in the History of Art and Architecture and Nonfiction English Writing, with a certificate in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. She has served as an undergraduate teaching assistant and is currently interning at Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery.

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).

Having studied in China, Canada, Austria and France, Liyi Chen is currently a fourth year HAA major and interning with the department’s online journal “Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture.” She was an undergraduate assistant at the University Art Gallery and Visual Media Workshop. She received a Brackenridge fellowship to conduct her honors thesis on 21st century re-presentations of the Empress Dowager and Marie Antoinette, a cross cultural comparison project overseen by Dr.

Maddi Johnson is a sophomore in the Architectural Studies Program. She is a Pittsburgh native. Art and architecture have always been an area of focus in her life. She chose architecture as a path after involving herself with the functional arts.  Her primary background lies in furniture and textiles.  In architecture she believes in simplicity and likes to study and embrace ideas from Modernism. Her favorite architect is Philip Johnson. She travels frequently to experience architecture first hand.

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.

Sarah Horton is a senior majoring in History of Art and Architecture, with a minor in Studio Arts and a certificate in Asian Studies. Her primary area of academic interest is modern and contemporary East Asian art, but she appreciates art from an eclectic range of locations and time periods.

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.

Grace is graduating senior majoring in History of Art and Architecture with a minor in Spanish and a certificate in Latin American Studies.

Last summer, the University Honor’s College awarded her an off-campus research award, which Grace used to travel to Houston and Austin, Texas. There, she investigated an exhibition, Rhodislandia, by Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica, a project done under the guidance of Professor Jennifer Josten.