Editorial/Curatorial

 

Concept: Maurice Owen

Exhibition curator: Graham Coulter-Smith

Publication editors: Graham Coulter-Smith, Maurice Owen

Keywords: confrontation, suspicion, fear, communication breakdown, labyrinth of interpretation, misreading, mistranslation, misunderstanding, media manipulation

 

 

Art in the Age of Terrorism tackles one of the most difficult topics imaginable: a war that is quintessentially post-modern in its decentred identity, globalised character and confused conflict of cultures. In the exhibition and accompanying publication artists and academics explore the various ways in which art can help articulate the zone of grey that lies behind the black and white term 'terrorism'. Perhaps visual art has an advantage over verbal language when it comes to 'speaking the unspeakable'.

 

The artists and theorists involved in the exhibition and publication tackle art in the age of terrorism in the broadest sense, including the cultural disorientation of the asylum seeker trying to map him or herself onto a new and sometimes hostile land. None of the artists or theorists involved in this project offer simplistic representations, and the variety of their voices provides a valuable counterbalance to the monotone of propaganda. They offer no definitive answers except that we open our eyes and confront not only the surface but what lies behind.

 

If there is one positive message stemming from this project then it is one of underscoring the need for historical and inter-cultural understanding and a questioning of the rhetoric of confrontation.

 

The publication themes include:

• Asylum/borderlines
• Iconoclasm
• The aesthetics of violence
• The language of mourning
• Bodies without voices
• The theatre of war 
• propaganda and the art of politics

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