GOne
100 years ago, modern artists vilified the past...
“…only use very modern and up-to-date subjects in order
to arrive at
NEW PLASTIC IDEALS…”
Umberto Boccioni, 1912
Modern art was obsessed with purity and revolution, eager to cast off the chains of the past
"We must breathe the tangible miracles of contemporary life -
the iron network of speedy communications which envelopes
the earth, the transatlantic liners,
the dreadnoughts, those marvelous flights that furrow our skies, the profound courage of our submarine navigators and the spasmotic struggle to conquer the unknown"
Umberto Boccioni, 1910
Museums, libraries, academies were all suspect for their allegiance to a corrupt past...
"We will...
destroy the cult of the past...
[and] sweep the whole field of art clean of all themes
and subjects that have been used in the past"
Umberto Boccioni, 1910
...but something happened on the way to the future...
"David Salle is recognized as the leading American postmodernist painter. He is the most authoritative exemplar of the movement, which has made a kind of mockery of art history, treating the canon of world art as if it were a gigantic, dog eared catalog crammed with tempting buys and equipped with a helpful twenty-four-hour-a day 800 number"
-Janet Malcolm
"42 False Starts"
The New Yorker,
July 11, 1994
Artists have re-engaged with history- artifacts, collections and even reenactment are powerful engines for their research and inquiry
In this panel discussion, three artists talk about how their work is shaped by its relationships to objects and actions
in history
Jane Irish
Christine Colby
Wendy Deschene
but not
FORGOTTEN
Fred Wilson, Metalwork 1792 - 1880, 2001
Mark Dion, The Return, 2008
Allison Smith, The Muster, 2005
Save Waller Street/Yellow Room, 2007
oil on Tyvec with raised letters, modeling paste, and archival foam
9 x 14 1/2 feet
The University of Pennsylvania
The University of the Arts
Auburn University
chair: gerard brown
Tyler School of Art
at Temple Unviersity