Reverse Archeology
Art, Design & Architecture Museum
UC Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-7130
The Stumbling Present: Ruins in Contemporary Art
October 13, 2012 – January 20, 2013
The Stumbling Present: Ruins in Contemporary Art features an international roster of artists who use the imagery of neglected or willfully destroyed places and objects to address socio-political concerns and the failure of utopian ideals. For many of these artists, ruins register as symbols of loss but also as sites of possibility upon which they can impose their own potent narratives. The included films, paintings, photographs, and sculptures are part of the long trajectory of ruins in art as signifiers of transience but they also reveal pressing concerns affecting contemporary artists and the state of our world today.