Hmmm… very provocative article here that covers some stuff I’m grappling wiht myself.

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-we-are-living-in-the-era-of-big-art-history

Curator Ana Debenedetti talks about art history as “a kind of visual background that we all have, and that influences our behavior.” I very much agree here. I think that Cinema has had a huge role to play in disseminating this ‘visual background’.

This revival of grand narratives, though quite differnet grand narratives than thos eof Modernism, is interesting. The isdea of getting rid of tyrannies of movements and periods is awfully tempting.

However, these new narratives are ful of holes and ruptures.

My book ArtHistory for Filmmakers is itself establishing a new grand narrative, that of Art History seen through the eyes of cinema, no less.

I’m going to be writing quite  a lot about this over the next phase of my research.