Damaged Romanticism

This fall, Blaffer Gallery is pleased to present Damaged Romanticism: A Mirror of Modern Emotion. Featuring 15 internationally recognized contemporary artists working in painting, sculpture, installations, and photography-based media, the exhibition explores contemporary art where the fantasies of classic romanticism are mitigated by the clarity of pragmatic realism. The artists are linked by their visual representations of how in the face of the disillusionment and failures of modern life, romanticism has been replaced by defiant optimism, or “damaged romanticism.” Belonging neither to a style nor a traditional school, featured works all embody an outlook frequently forged in heartbreaking disappointment, but never resigned to pain or failure. Artists in the exhibition include Richard Billingham (England); Berlinde De Bruyckere (Belgium); Edward Burtynsky (Canada); Sophie Calle (France); Petah Coyne (United States); Angelo Filomeno (Italy/United States); Jesper Just (Denmark/United States); Florian Maier-Aichen (Germany/United States); Mary McCleary (United States); Wangechi Mutu (Kenya/United States); Anneè Olofsson (Sweden); Julia Oschatz (Germany); David Schnell (Germany); and Ryan Taber/Cheyenne Weaver (United States). Suffering, tragedy, and misunderstanding form the soil out of which the works in Damaged Romanticism spring, making a place, as they grow, for hope. This hope has nothing to do with the unattainable platitudes of idealism, but is, on the contrary, sensible, even pedestrian, in its groundedness in the gritty vicissitudes of the real world. Stubborn optimism takes the place of dreamy utopianism in Damaged Romanticism. In this sense it embodies an aftermath aesthetic. At the heart of these works is the recognition that virgin births are fantasies, that blank slates are not found but actually involve lots of often violent erasing, and that starting fresh is more like starting over, often with more psychological baggage than one would choose to begin with. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s claim that American lives have no second acts does not apply to the works in Damaged Romanticism, all of which are built on the knowledge that rebirth grows out of experiences of things gone horribly wrong. Damaged Romanticism: A Mirror of Modern Emotion was organized for Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, by Terrie Sultan, Director, The Parrish Art Museum (former Director, Blaffer Gallery); David Pagel, Assistant Professor of Art Theory and History, Claremont Graduate University; and Colin Gardner, Professor of Critical Theory and Integrative Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. The exhibition and publication are made possible, in part, by the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, the Cecil Amelia Blaffer von Furstenberg Endowment for Exhibitions and Programs, the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, Ellen and Steve Susman, Continental Airlines, and the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany.