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Half-Truths at the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH, 2017
Installation detail from Half-Truths, 2017

Jane Benson: Half-Truths
by Steven Matijcio

It’s difficult for us not to instinctually duck our heads, clench our eyes, and conceive of destruction as anything other than a hostile act producing injury, trauma, tragedy or worse. When observed in art, curator Justin Hoffmann proclaims with soaring gravitas, “Artistic destruction is the first ascertainment of the apocalypse. The apocalyptic artist takes on the role of a prophet of doom. He is simultaneously perpetrator (destroyer) and victim (of the catastrophe). Auto-destructive art is the art of a time at the end of time.” (1) When applied to the notion of a collective body and destruction on a societal scale, many fear the ramifications of revolution and grow all the more nostalgic towards a romantic past and the endangered present.  Continue Reading -->