14 LEHIGH UNIVERSITY | COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13) Charting the Altai’s birth, uplift and the rate at which the mountains grow will ultimately lead researchers to the climate impact question, he says. Funded by the National Science Foundation, a 10-member team with participants from Lehigh, Colorado State University, the University of California Irvine and Mongolia dug into this question in the arid Mongolian desert. The Altai, an ancient mountain range, is at the convergence point Joining Pazzaglia were doctoral student Nora Vaughan of Pittsburgh and Aurora Bertoldo, an undergraduate senior from Belvidere, New Jersey. They lived and worked in bone-dry arid desert conditions where summertime temperatures easily logged 90°F and nights dipped into the 60° mark. It may seem odd to consider mountains as living features—but mountains have a definitive lifespan. watchmen or janitors to have more time for their art and more ability to create art without ideological pressure. “When you are caught in a regime that is trying to repress your ability to think and behave and live, you can sometimes make more progress by freeing yourself creatively. It’s not hard for an autocratic state to stalk the individual; it’s hard to stop individuals who imagine themselves free of those constraints.” earth & environmental sciences Mountains and Climate Impact A Lehigh geology professor and two students spent a month this summer studying the Altai Mountains in western Mongolia and returned to Bethlehem profoundly changed. How high—and massive—do mountains need to grow and how long does it take before their elevation impacts global climate patterns? “The Altai impacts how the rest of the climate system circulates” well beyond central and east Asia, says Frank Pazzaglia, professor of geology in the department of Earth and environmental sciences and leader of the Lehigh research team. historians are incomplete because they neglect the important contributions of a younger generation of conceptual artists in Moscow. Moscow Conceptualism—created by “unofficial” artists who didn’t always have access to materials or studios or exhibit spaces—was a challenge to that scripted narrative. Many of the earliest generation of Moscow Conceptualists worked as artists for the state by day—painting slogans or doing commissions. At night in their underground world, and with a very small group of trusted friends, they created and discussed a different kind of art. Those artists, Nicholas says, “set themselves up as Don Quixote figures in the face of the all-powerful state.” The group of artists Nicholas documents refused to accept the futility of that common approach to unofficial art. The younger group of conceptualists was more knowledgeable about Western art and felt that art needed to be in the open for all to engage with. Artists didn’t need to be part of an exclusive club to talk about art or understand it. In a bold way, the group worked within the system while at the same time rebelling against it. Many of the younger artists made their living in jobs such as night Art to the Masses, The Nest, 1978. The research team makes camp in Mongolia (above). Part of the Altai mountain range (top). (CONTINUED ON PAGE 17) Courtesy of Mary Nicholas / Courtesy of Frank Pazzaglia / Adobe Stock
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