Angelica J. Maier Awarded 2021-22 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship

The Department of Art History is pleased to announce that Angelica J. Maier is the recipient of a 2021-2022 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, which gives the University of Minnesota's most accomplished PhD candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write a dissertation during the fellowship year. Maier’s dissertation, “Toxic Matter: American Sculpture, Materials Science and Cultural Fear, 1962-1979,” is the first sustained examination of the intersections between artistic media, materials science, and toxicity. Through thematic chapters centered on lead, plastics, and gas—all media used in American sculpture by artists including Richard Serra, Eva Hesse, and Keith Sonnier—she re-situates artists’ aesthetic choices in relation to social concerns over class mobility and racial tensions, examines the discourse surrounding the toxicity of artistic materials, and connects their works to broader cultural fears and understandings of toxicity and materiality at the time.