Post-Apocalyptic Future

"Art that fantasizes about a world after humans, and by consequence a world outside history, is one that suggests a change in our relationship with there here-and-now." -J.J. Charlesworth 

Charlesworth, J.J. "Special Focus: Apocalypse, In the Ruins of the Future." Art Review, December 2008.http://www.artreviewdigital.com/index.cfm/artreview-digital/magazine.view/title/december2008.

Charlesworth's article discusses the emerging fascination with post-apocalyptic themes within the art world. He suggests that an abundance of art is preoccupied with a sense of human society drifting towards an uncertain end, gloomy and "in some not-so-far-off, worn-out future." His observations of this phenomenon conclude that its not that artists are insisting the end is near, but they are trying to make sense of, and give shape to a topic which is so vague, but also has a huge impact with its widespread, continually growing feelings of "apprehension and foreboding, to the point that if there is a future, it might not necessarily contain humans." His writings mention the work of Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster titled TH.2058, installation art surveying a near future in which people and outdoor public sculpture seek refuge from a hostile climate, also suggesting a near future where culture is nothing more than a constant reprocessing of past fragments. That being said, the work itself is a projection of a dead-end future. Nothing new is made, and the old is constantly recycled.

This article has probably been one of the most fascinating things i've come across in my research as of yet. Maybe because it pretty much directly relates to what I have been trying to achieve, and I didn't realize a number of recognized artists were working with the same themes. Not only the artist mentioned above, but highly recognized curators Massimiliano Gioni and Douglas Fogle are eager to present this type of work, and as Gioni explains, " What these artists share is a desire to to charge art with a magical power, invest it with contents and forms that are meant to contrast its secularization, and aim at bringing it back into a sphere that is, if not religious, at least sacred or obscure, like a mystery cult."