lindsay tunkl
class of 2017
about
Lindsay Tunkl graduated from CalArts with a BFA in photography and new media in 2010 and is currently a dual-degree candidate at California College of the Arts pursuing an MFA in Fine Art and an MA in Visual & Critical Studies. By researching and exploring subjects such as the apocalypse, affect, death, encounter, solitude and vulnerability, Tunkl’s work investigates what it means to be human in the contemporary moment. Using a tender and humorous hand she offers the viewer reflexive experiences with their emotions, their perspectives, and their place within a world that is uncertain, scary and, more often than not, heartbreaking. She is the creator of Pre Apocalypse Counseling, a collection of interactive works and performances that explore participants’ emotional connection to the end of the world, and the author of When You Die You Won’t Be Scared To Die and Origins and Endings: An Inkblot Test soon to be published by Parallax Press.
Her work has been shown in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany: most notably at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, CA, The Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Fe, NM, Southern Exposure in San Francisco, CA, Performance Space in London, England, and Gruentaler9 in Berlin, Germany.
lindsay’s thesis
TRAGIC OPTIMISM: ANGST, AFFECT AND AFFIRMATION IN THE WORK OF DARIO ROBLETO and Felix Gonzalez-Torres
This thesis looks to the work of Dario Robleto as exemplifying Nietzsche’s assertion that art can affirm life’s value in the face of nihilist despair by performing a synthesis of Apollonian and Dionysian aesthetics—a doubling of oppositional yet complimentary affects such as tragedy and beauty, or desire and fear. In an exploration of what art can accomplish in times of despair, this project focuses on artistic practices imbued with the tragic optimism Nietzsche so passionately believed in. Analyzing works by Robleto, as well as projects by his greatest artistic influence, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, I examine Nietzsche’s philosophy of aesthetics as relevant in the contemporary art context.