Ruins in Reverse: Time and Progress in Contemporary Art (1999)
$15.00
This is special issue of the CEPA Journal that documents the exhibition Ruins in Reverse: Time and Progress in Contemporary Art (September 18, 1998-March 19, 1999). The title for this exhibition is taken from Robert Smithson’s 1967 work, A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey, in which he describes the suburbs of Passaic as “ruins in reverse. . . This is the opposite of the ‘romantic ruin’ because the buildings don’t fall into ruin after they are built but rather rise into ruin before they are built.” The experience of the ruin suggests a particular mental orientation, a sense of lost promise combined, perhaps, with a desire to redeem that promise in the future. It is a contemplative mode of thought that might lead to nostalgia and resignation or to renewed activism as the past is overlaid with, and tested against, the present. This exhibition begins then with the question of allegory in art, and with allegory as a prototypically aesthetic form of signification.
● Staple bound : 40 pages black & white
● Product Dimensions : 11 x 8 inches
● Language : English