|September 4-28| The Conquest of Space references the Belgian conceptual artist Marcel Broodthaers’s comparison of contemporary art with the conquest of space. While I understand Broodthaers to be describing a spirit of exploration beyond the known, I am mindful that he is speaking within a particular historical context – the early 1970’s. This context includes both the fading rhetoric of High Modernism and the bullish language of the American space project. Re-examining this phrase in an era which has (arguably) seen the collapse of Modernist utopianism and a subtle shift in the aims of NASA (largely brought about by dramatically reduced funding, but also perhaps, a reflection of more immediate concerns on Earth, such as the environmental crisis), I have set about finding more satirical readings of this phrase.
Interviews and reviews:
Video interview thanks to Chantal Wynter | © Wynter Projects, 2013
Click here for a review by artist and writer Kent Wilson The Submachine, September, 2013
