The Dense Image
Appropriation in Contemporary Art
| The proliferation of images in the digital age presents a challenge for the contemporary artist. The value of original artworks has been replaced by the value of mass circulation. This exhibition features the work of artists who mine for information, recycling old images through new contexts. Here, what was once closed becomes opened in the present, as artists (re)activate the old image into an interpretive, contemporary history. Through the densification of time within a single work, colonial narratives become self-reflexive, institutions of popular media are made transparent, institutions of art are reevaluated, and the life, death and afterlife of the artwork are made visible. As a result, the viewer’s interpretation of the image is perpetually altered as new contexts beget new meanings. The image has no final resting place. | The proliferation of images in the digital age presents a challenge for the contemporary curator. The value of original artworks has been replaced by the value of mass circulation. This exhibition features the work of curators who mine for information, recycling old images through new contexts. Here, what was once closed becomes opened in the present, as curators (re)activate the old image into an interpretive, contemporary history. Through the densification of time within a single work, colonial narratives become self-reflexive, institutions of popular media are made transparent, institutions of art are reevaluated, and the life, death and afterlife of the artwork are made visible. As a result, the viewer’s interpretation of the image is perpetually altered as new contexts beget new meanings. The image has no final resting place. |
