Graduate Students

Robert Bailey

Modern/Contemporary

Bailey's doctoral research investigates the concept of a "late avant-garde" vis-à-vis the work of the Conceptual Art collective Art & Language, New York, a group of artists and intellectuals who, from 1971 to 1976, mediated their group debates and discussions on a wide range of topics — modern and contemporary art and art theory, radical politics, philosophy of language, new developments in science and mathematics, etc. — into works of art, exhibitions, journals, books, films, and music albums. In particular, Bailey explores how A&LNY’s theoretically informed practice reflects a deep self-consciousness of the group’s own lateness as an avant-garde manifestation (their distaste for the very term "avant-garde" is here symptomatic). The group maintained fidelity to the original impetus of the avant-garde — the use of art to critically interrogate both aesthetic convention and social tradition — in order to abandon the hegemonic imperatives of formalist High Modernism without lapsing into the relativist postmodern malaise characteristic of their historical moment. A&LNY countered skepticism about the sustainability and relevance of the avant-garde project by establishing a collaborative and conversational environment in which members educated themselves and one another about aesthetic and political directions that could lead away from complicity with bourgeois society towards new forms of art and life founded not, paradoxically, on a foundation, but on the constant questioning of anything like a foundation. The peculiar circumstances of A&LNY’s untimely avant-gardism entitle them to a place in theories and histories of modernism, the avant-garde, postmodernism, and contemporary art. At present, however, no complete record of the collective’s activities exists.

CV Highlights

Education

Ph.D. (in progress), University of Pittsburgh, History of Art & Architecture, GPA: 3.98, Thesis: "A Late Avant-Garde: Art & Language, New York", Advisor: Terry Smith

M.A. (2007), University of Pittsburgh, History of Art & Architecture, GPA: 3.97, Thesis: "A Paradigm Shift: The Reception of Conceptual Art in Print, 1967-1973"

B.A. (2005), Magna Cum Laude, University of Pittsburgh, History of Art & Architecture (Departmental Honors) and Philosophy, minor in Studio Arts, GPA: 3.54, Theses: "Creating the Contemporary: The 2004 Carnegie International and the Biennale Explosion" and "Gu Wenda: The United Nations Project as Utopian Imaginary"

Teaching Experience

Teaching Fellow (2006-present), University of Pittsburgh; courses taught: Fall 2006: Introduction to Art; Spring 2007: Introduction to Contemporary Art; Summer 2007: Introduction to Art; Fall 2007: Introduction to Art; Spring 2008: Introduction to World Art; Summer 2008: Introduction to Contemporary Art; Fall 2008: Introduction to Contemporary Art; Spring 2009: Introduction to Art –– Writing Practicum; Summer 2009: Introduction to World Art

Lecturer (2008), Carnegie Museum of Art; delivered lectures to museum docents about artists included in "Life on Mars: 55th Carnegie International" and subjects ranging from "Contemporary Art and Materiality" to "The Aesthetics of Abstraction"

Program Director (2007-2008), University Docents Training Program, Carnegie Museum of Art; trained undergraduate students to be docents for "Life on Mars: 55th Carnegie International"

Professional Experience

Intern (2007-2008), Carnegie Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Department: worked on the exhibition "Life on Mars: 55th Carnegie International" as an aide to curator Douglas Fogle and assistant curator Heather Pesanti

Intern (2007), The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Archives Department: worked under archivist Matt Wrbican on the exhibitions "Gift of Gretchen Berg: The True Story of ‘My True Story’" and "The Troublemakers"

Intern (2007), The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Education Department: helped to develop an interactive timeline of Warhol’s life and context used in the museum’s galleries

Paper Presentations

"Unconscious Reproduction: Jenny Holzer’s Redaction Paintings", Pennsylvania State University’s Graduate Student Association for Visual Culture, First Annual Graduate Conference: "Image as Witness", State College, Pennsylvania, April 2009

"Improvisation and Rule-Following in European and American Art and Music from the 1950s to the 1970s", Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China, March 2009

"Abstraction in Art and Music" (with Elizabeth Hoover, PhD candidate in musicology, University of Pittsburgh), Evening Muse Lecture Series, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, October 2008

"Film as Propaganda in the Integrated Spectacle: The Case of United 93", Literary & Cultural Studies Colloquium, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, April 2007

"Current Memory, Memorial Currents: Spectacle and Spectrality in the Artistic Response to September 11, 2001", Grad Student Expo, University of Pittsburgh, March 2007

Awards, Fellowships, and Grants

Friends of the Frick Fine Arts/Wilkinson Travel Grant, 1 week research in Beijing, China, March 2009

Luce Travel Fund Grant, 4 weeks research at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, August 2008

Dissertation Development Grant, University of Pittsburgh, 3 weeks research at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., summer 2007

Arts & Sciences Graduate Fellowship in the History of Art & Architecture Department, University of Pittsburgh, 2005-2006

Special Commendation from the Faculty of the Frick History of Art and Architecture Department, University of Pittsburgh, 2005

Friends of the Frick Undergraduate Writing Award, University of Pittsburgh, 2005