‘CARAVAGGIO: UNA MOSTRA IMPOSSIBILE!’ Saturday through Feb. 11; Loyola University Museum of Art. This is what I’ve been worried about for the last few years as digital images have become more and more mainstream.
I’m talking about replacing experience with simulated experience.
Admittedly, you will never get all of Caravaggio’s work under one roof – and I wonder if you really should, thats not the point. The point is you are going to replace the idea of seeing authentic (or real artwork) with digital prints. To me it is entirely the absence of the “authentic” that kills this show for me. Suddenly the criticism of Jean Baudrillard seems entirely correct:
“The very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction… The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced: That is, the hyper-real… which is entirely in simulation”
I’m not going to turn this into a JB symposium, however I really do think that we as members of the art community should vigorously avoid this project. It poses a series of bad questions and even worse decisions for artists and galleries. I’m sure there are going to be a number of post this AM about this – I’ll update links as I am able.