INDEPENDENT 20TH CENTURY: BOOTH 308

THE OBSESSIVE IMAGE

The Obsessive Image, a collaborative presentation by Gió Marconi and David Nolan Gallery, explores the recurrence of images, forms, and artistic preoccupations across twentieth-century art. While repetition is one manifestation of obsession, the exhibition considers a wide spectrum of obsessive artistic behavior: the return to a single image, motif, or medium; the meticulous refinement of craft; the accumulation of forms over decades; and the compulsive need to investigate an idea beyond conventional limits. Bringing together Italian and European artists with art of the Americas, the presentation reveals connections between formally and conceptually distinct practices from different generations and cultures, tracing how obsession, in its many forms, becomes a mode of seeing as much as a way of making.

In a culture defined by progress and acceleration with the relentless circulation of news, images, the pressure of markets, and the obsessive measurement of time and productivity, the artists in this exhibition offer a different proposition: that to return to the same image, or form, or the same question or concept, is a very meaningful way to move forward. Artistic obsession slows time. This presentation makes the case for that paradox.