Posing Modernity: A Virtual Journey-CMA Journal
In my review of the virtual exhibition Posing Modernity (Wallach Gallery at Columbia University, New York) – a ground-breaking exhibition on the central role of Black models in the French modern canon – I reflect on our collective screen fatigue.
Alone in front of my screen, my connection with these disembodied artworks is more intellectual than either sensual, emotional, or communal. In this time of social injustice, hardship, and uncertainty, we need the power of art more than ever. Curators, artists, and cultural institutions will have to create innovative online forms of public engagement that have the capacity to move us. The coronavirus pandemic has inaugurated a new era that will require a radical reimagining of the artistic experience. Are we all up for it?
Read the article, Posing Modernity: A Virtual Journey, in Comparative Media Arts Journal (Simon Fraser University).
Image: Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, The Black Woman (Why Born a Slave?), 1872, from the exhibition.
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1 Comment
More than simply a review. It is contextually well composed (placing the historical skilfully in the present), inspiring and informative. Your first-person style of narrative is particularly strong in that the effect is personal yet scholarly. In linguistics there is something we call phatic communion – which is the social tendon connecting people in everyday communication. You achieve that beautifully to draw in the reader and produce a reflective work that is actually an academic piece in its provenance. Your appeal to embrace the online exhibition is both passionate and convincing! Only few writers can do that! It is a pleasure to read.
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