| Autumn of Modernism The title of the exhibition was inspired by The Autumn of the Middle Ages, Johan Huizinga’s classic book published in 1919, a study of the forms of life, thought, and art at the end of the Middle Ages. The book shows that the artists of that period achieved their groundbreaking successes precisely because they drew on the past. This gave them a better grasp of the changes occurring all around them. The explosion of news outlets and ways of consuming the news has made our society very focused on the now, and we sometimes forget to consider the future or the past. Artists try to step out of the present by consulting sources from the past and using them in their art, thus attempting to build bridges to the future. Participants: Gwenneth Boelens, Piet Dieleman, gerlach en koop, Sara van der Heide, Martijn Hendriks, Bas van den Hurk, Rob Johannesma, Katja Mater, Marc Nagtzaam, Falke Pisano, Roma Publications, Petra Stavast, Batia Suter, Remco Torenbosch, Martijn in ’t Veld De Vleeshal, Middelburg, The Netherlands Curated by Lorenzo Benedetti January 14 — March 24, 2012  Huizinga had an aesthetic approach to history, where art and spectacle played an important part. His most famous work is The Autumn of the Middle Ages (a.k.a. The Waning of the Middle Ages) (1919). He here reinterpreted the later Middle Ages as a period of pessimism and decadence rather than rebirth. Worthy of mentioning are also Erasmus (1924) and Homo Ludens (1938). In the latter book he discussed the possibility that play is the primary formative element in human culture. Huizinga also published books on American history and Dutch history in the 17th century. |
 Autumn of Modernism Catalogue by Roma Publications, 2012. Different from a regular exhibition catalogue, this book contains autonomous contributions by 14 artists who where invited by curator Lorenzo Benedetti to take part in the exhibition 'Autumn of Modernism' at De Vleeshal, Middelburg. The contributions somehow respond in an indirect way to the social changes of our day, such as the present economic crisis. With contributions by Gwenneth Boelens, Piet Dieleman, gerlach en koop, Sara van der Heide, Martijn Hendriks, Bas van den Hurk, Rob Johannesma, Katja Mater, Marc Nagtzaam, Falke Pisano, Petra Stavast, Batia Suter, Remco Torenbosch, Martijn in 't Veld. And with an introduction by Lorenzo Benedetti. Roma Publications, 2012 Design: Roger Willems and Louis Lüthi. ISBN 978 90 77459 79 9 |
 from left to right: Rob Johannesma, Martijn Hendriks, Remco Torenbosch (2x) |
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 From left to right: Remco Torenbosch, Falke Pisano. |
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