The Department is thrilled to congratulate history of art major Ember Ye on her Dean’s ASPIRE Grant, awarded by the Office of Undergraduate Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity (URSCA). Ember will use the grant for summer research dedicated to her Honors Senior Thesis, which examines the role of wax and soft plastic materials in works of body casting by the irreverent French-American painter and chess-player Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) and the Polish sculptor Alina Szapocznikow (1926-1973). The topic for Ember’s Honors Thesis was sparked in the seminar “Figuration after Formlessness,” offered by Prof. Caroline Lillian Schopp, who is advising her thesis. In spring and summer 2025, Ember will travel to France, Poland, Austria, and the Netherlands, as well as New York City and Philadelphia, to visit archives and see works by the artists and to study the wax and plaster anatomical models that inspired them.

Image: Ember Ye pictured with Marcel Duchamp’s Chocolate Grinder N. 2 (1914) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on a recent research trip and reading up on Alina Szapocznikow in preparation for her summer travels.