Sofia D’Agostino
BA Honors | Art History
BIO
My name is Sofia D’Agostino and I am originally from Naples, Florida. I will be graduating from Notre Dame with an Honors degree in Art History and Italian Studies. Following graduation, I will be attending the University of Texas at Austin in pursuit of my Master’s degree in Art History. While there, I will continue my inquiries into how engagement with the format of performance art in Latin America during the 20th and 21st centuries coincides with periods of political and social strife. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to the faculty of the Art History department and at the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art who have been instrumental to my growth as an art historian. I am especially thankful to my thesis advisor, Dr. Tatiana Reinoza, whose influence has made a lasting impact on the direction and flourishing of my research.
THESIS ABSTRACT
My project examines performance art in the context of Brazil to demonstrate how the body functions as an axis through which artists question and critically analyze modern conceptions of Brazilian identity and society. Over the course of three chapters, I consider works by the Brazilian artists Hèlio Oiticica, Adriana Varejão, and Clarissa Tossin, each of whom make use of performance or the body in their works. My research questions how these artists incorporate elements of Brazilian history into their projects to reexamine the effects of marginalization, colonization, and extraction in the past, present, and future. Through an in-depth analysis of their work, I aim to examine how these artists chose to implicate the body of the spectator as a means of inspiring change in their perception of self and others.
