“There is a growing feeling amongst many in the museum profession that old human remains should be returned to where they were originally found.” But “the bones are evidence from the past that speak to us about life from between one century to many thousands of years ago. Under scrutiny they reveal patterns of migration, the effect of environment upon body form, and the relationship between different populations. We can learn who lived where and when, about patterns in health, origin, gene flow and microevolutionary change. When the law changes, large and significant collections could be broken up and sent away.”
Tag: 04.03
Enduring Themes…
“For over 400 years, from the time of Giotto to Rembrandt, Western painting is inconceivable without the vision and the stories contained in the Bible, especially in the Gospels…”
Has Conceptualism Hit A Dead End?
Battles over the legitimacy of conceptual art occupied a good part of the 20th Century. In the 21st Century those concluding that art has taken a wrong turn with conceptualism are a growing chorus. “The world of fine art now appears exclusively concerned with semiotics, ?the crisis in representation? and other academic matters. Visiting a gallery in the hope of being made to stare in wonder is, according to the prevailing critical theory, ‘sentimental’ and ‘naïve’. Beauty, it would seem, is merely something to be analysed in a cloud of righteous deconstruction. However, the rapidity with which conceptual art evaporates from our consciousness undermines such grandiose pretensions. Once the tribal rituals of endorsement or derision have passed, the oeuvres of our more prominent artists actually evoke very little sense of meaning or avant-garde unease.”