William A. Ewing et Holly Roussell, Civilization – Quelle époque ! — Julie Martin, A Photographic Mapping of the TwentyFirst Century
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Portfolios
Authors: Julie Martin | Artists: Massimo Vitali
Two hundred works, a hundred and ten photographers, eight sections: this ambitious exhibition, observes critic Julie Martin, “offers a glimpse of the movements that run through today’s world: interrelations, invisible flows, influences, mobility of goods and human beings.” Martin bases her reflection on the principle of “cognitive mapping,” formulated by Fredric Jameson to evoke what escapes our gaze, our senses, and our experience. Although she sees Civilization as a descendant of Edward Steichen’s legendary exhibition The Family of Man, she underlines that this new show is a true panorama of diversity – and not a portrayal of capitalistic hegemony. “The curators do not renounce the idea of a human community,” Martin writes, “but they respect its disparities [and] make visible the mechanisms of power (hidden in The Family of Man) that shape our world.”