Influence, Anxiety, and Gratitude
Influence, Anxiety, and Gratitude curated by Bill Arning features the work of over twenty international artists in all mediums, including painting, sculpture, photography, video, and performance.
These artists conspicuously make references to other works of art in order to interrogate the often-problematic relationship of today’s artists to the tradition from which they spring. These artists wish to better understand the true nature of art production, the writing of art-cultural histories, the formation and reformulations of canons, the imperative of creative acts, and the succession of art acts over time.
Influence was a standard way of understanding art and creative acts that today has fallen into disfavor as an interpretive tool. Seen as romantic and imprecise, Influence is deemed too tied to biography and too prone to reinforcing the patriarchy and values of the master narrative. Influence, Anxiety, and Gratitude seeks to reconsider the concept of influence as it functions in an art world of diverse practices and parishioners who work in a multitude of locations and mediums. By examining how artists choose to acknowledge their forerunners, and how these artists choose to position their work in relationship to their chosen sources, Influence, Anxiety, and Gratitude will reveal reasons behind the ongoing desire to create work with a comprehensible past and a rich pool of associations, leading to an ongoing future dialogue of inexhaustible potential.
This presentation is part of the Boston Cyberarts Festival, 2003.
Sponsors
Influence, Anxiety & Gratitude is made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Council for the Arts at MIT, the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, the Embassy of Sweden, the Edward and Marjorie Goldberger Foundation, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, the Canadian Consulate General in Boston, IASPIS, the Boston Cyberarts Festival and The Boston Phoenix.