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  • Essay / Post-postmodern discourse in the context of the contemporary exhibition

    The importance of post-postmodern discourse in the context of the contemporary exhibition cannot be refuted or ignored. Even if modernism and postmodernism prove possible to define and identify, what comes next – what is happening now – is almost impossible, by its very nature, to be stylistically cataloged. This incongruity is extremely hostile to humanity's need to conjure grand narratives of cotemporality. If we can agree that the main descriptors of contemporaneity may indeed be its indefinability, and, even more so, the feeling of "what it means to be with time", what it means to occur now but coexist with varying temporalities , and the pure proliferation of creation. art in contrasting ways, we can conclude that while the contemporary must be understood in the light of its predecessors - in the topography of "art history" - it does not want to be dissected, analyzed or considered in the same way .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay This is perhaps the reason why, while in a vacuum, contemporary art is perceived as illegible and esoteric by the general public; Yet within the framework of the thematic exhibition – often quasi-pedagogical – the work is better communicated through historical and inter-material juxtapositions, while the uncontemporary can be deciphered more coherently in a chronological exhibition. Pompei@MADRE: The archaeological material is organized thematically and will be discussed in its clear engagement with past museology and interdisciplinary conservation. A modern obsession. The focal point of every formal and thematic aspect of the exhibition is the ancient but seismic event of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. and the ruins he left in his wake. The contemporary importance of archaeological material has acted as a conduit between time, space and cultures, and has further inspired generations of creatives to devote their imagination to the history of the city, supporting and keeping it contemporary, beyond the conservation effort aimed at preserving the dead. living city as a heritage site. The genesis of this exhibition is the “modern obsession” with Pompeii. The fear of something destroyed but paradoxically preserved permeates this exhibition. Archaeological sites offer a cornucopia of ideological and visual material that contemporary artists can appropriate. From room to room of the white-walled gallery, generations of artists who were inspired by the icon of Vesuvius are exhibited. A curious column hangs from the ceiling and emerges from the gallery floor but borders a negative space in between. Maria Loboda's "Interrupted Pillar" shows a fascination with ruined materials and illustrates how the past is delivered to us in fragments: "I saw the image of a pillar with the central part missing in a catalog about the complex from the temple of Karnak, and she struck. me as such a paradoxical and elegant composition. This pillar was supposed to hold the temple, but that was clearly not the case. It was decorative. So even if you think something is there to bring stability, sometimes it's just a mirage. » Vesuvius itself is revered in a space displaying neoclassical oil paintings – figurative depictions of the erupting volcano – embodying the sublime and glorifying natural catastrophe, while the center stage consists of two boxes of equipment archaeological site destroyed and fragmented, one being the product of the eruption and the other the subsequent product of the bombardments of theSecond World War. The sublime and the strange clash. The paintings displayed in the presence of archaeological material show a clash of co-temporalities and reincarnate Pompeii in modern form through both scientific archeology and fantasy, each successive cultural reality superimposing its values ​​and ideas on the distant past. Although the so-called “desire for ruin” has prevailed from neoclassicism to the present, the tone of the expression is different. We have moved from sublime pictorial reverence to the modernism of architectural and archaeological revival (as seen in Le Corbusier's sketches), to the irony and critical eye of postmodernism, and then to the optimism of preservation. Although it lacks a unifying style, contemporary art systematically references modern art. and postmodern art. The achievements and shortcomings of modernist, colonial, and indigenous art still pose inevitable challenges to current practice. As in Pompei@Madre, there is a postcolonial emphasis on practices based "on exhibiting enduring relationships with specific environments, both social and natural, within the framework of ecological values." Ultimately, concern for preservation and conservation is a symptom of interdisciplinary collaborations and conservation attitudes. What becomes a characteristic of the contemporary interdisciplinary exhibition is the allusion of a future vision, a possibility of building a sustainable project, interdisciplinary exhibitions breathe innovation and research. In the last gallery of the exhibition grows a real garden, drawn from the organic materials surviving in Pompeii, which is the work of various archaeologists, botanists, zoologists, chemists, etc. Imbued with the optimism and “love of the natural” of modernism, these remains can enable a rejuvenation of life in Pompeii, thawing out and allowing the city to still be a contemporary affair. The interdisciplinary exhibition creates an arena for the polymath artist. Goshka Macuga – known for emphasizing modernist values ​​– reevaluates the identity of the artist by embodying the creative, the collector and the curator. The room adjacent to Allan McCollum Pop-Art, a worthy multiplication of the infamous Pompeian Dog (1991) casting, exploring how artifacts could elicit an emotional response but then diffuse it by recognizing the inauthenticity embodied by the seriality of the installation, presents a niche in which Macuga's sculptures sit alongside the Pompeian artifacts on which they are formally based. Macuga revisits the 20th century and embodies it through icons such as Pussy Riot, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein, whose heads of concrete and jesmonite sprout. His installation creates a fictional encounter between influencers from varied historical and cultural backgrounds, whose ideas contemplate the complexities of humanity. She recognizes the concept of reanimation, rather than McCollum's emphasis on replication which strives to amplify the distance between the ancient and the modern. There appears a devotion to a conception of the contemporary as an “absolute simultaneity: all its moments existing at the same time”. The construction of stories and the insights gained from engaging with cultural artifacts are at the heart of her practice. In terms of reshaping existing institutional practices, Macuga selects objects based on their content, form, and meaning rather than their value. As his installation MADRE shows, artifacts and works are presented without concern for factual classification and hierarchy. They break traditional analysis and suggest contemporary narratives. It places “the methods of collection,.