Mark Sladen, director of exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, who organized the Memorial to Iraq show earlier in the summer, has also been surprised at the slowness of artists in addressing Iraq, but now believes the conflict is inspiring an important transformation in the art world.
"One of the things that motivated me to do the show at the ICA was I felt the art world had been strangely quiet. I think there has been a bias against work seen as illustrative and dogmatic. It seems to me that situation is unfreezing and people are finding ways to express political issues that are not oversimplified.
"One of the key figures, I think, is the US artist Sam Durant who did a really nice piece for our show, proposing to pile up the debris of the war around Whitehall and the White House. Someone else is the Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn." Indeed, Hirschhorn's most recent work - Superficial Engagement - which some critics have compared to Picasso's Guernica, is a walk-in exhibit that includes hundreds of color images of Arabs and Afghans who have been blown to pieces.
"I think something really important is going on," says Sladen. "It is an important transitional moment, between the market-driven art world and artist pulling powerfully in a different direction."
RSS