Shira Backer is a third-year M.A. candidate in History of Art at Bryn Mawr College, completing a thesis on the ceramics of Sterling Ruby, a contemporary, Los Angeles-based artist who also works in collage and video, along with other sculptural media. The thesis explores the relationship of a recent series of sculptures, “Basin Theology,” to parts of Ruby’s oeuvre that function as social critique in more obvious ways. Shira received her B.A. in Philosophy from Barnard College, and spent a year working in the education department of the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, New York. In 2011-2012, she is serving as a Graduate Assistant in Special Collections at Bryn Mawr.
She will present “Discipline Slip: Art Therapy and the Ceramics of Sterling Ruby” during Panel #3.
The End of the -ist and the Future of Art History 