Last is the period of “atomization” and “reorganization” — the period we speak of as postmodernism, which is characterized by art’s indifference to any claim that it has abandoned its avant-garde legacies, and, crucially, by “an economy frantically struggling to retool discursive technology in order to recuperate it.”
That “Activator” asks us to think historically not only about the work in it, but about its very possibility as a show, is where it derives its strength.
And that it doesn’t try to stage this laborious self-criticism opens the door to something much more interesting and provocative: the viewer.
Activator
at the Bates College Museum of Art | through March 20 | talk by artist Amy Stacey Curtis February 2 at 7 pm | curator’s tour with Liz Kelton Sheehan on March 14 at noon | 75 Russell Street, Lewiston | call 207.786.6158
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On the Web:
Bates College Museum of Art: www.bates.edu/museum.xml
E-mail the author:
Chris Thompson: xxtopher@hotmail.com
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Museum And Gallery
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