Fractured Narratives: a strategy to engage

Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College
September 17, 2014–January 4, 2015

Fractured Narratives: a strategy to engage was the first exhibition inspired by the Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art at Rollins College. The exhibition featured works by established and emerging artists who address contemporary global issues such as privacy, modern warfare, the environment, and freedom of expression. Fractured Narratives aimed to provoke critical dialogue and reflection by engaging visitors with the challenging ambiguities of complex histories. The selected works offered diverse and nuanced considerations of the changing political, cultural, psychological, and social context of the past ten years.

Co-curated by Cornell Fine Arts Museum Curator Amy Galpin and Abigail Ross Goodman, the exhibition featured film, photography, painting, sculpture, and sound works by 14 artists from around the world: Dawoud Bey, Omer Fast, Eric Gottesman, Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, Amar Kanwar, William Kentridge, An-My Lê, Maya Lin, Goshka Macuga, “Moris” Israel Moreno, Rivane Neuenschwander, Trevor Paglen, and Martha Rosler.

Exhibition highlights included Muxima (2005), a video work by Alfredo Jaar, featuring fragmented vignettes of landmines, the AIDS crisis, and remnants of colonialism in Angola; Jenny Holzer’s large-scale color-blocked painting Water-board 14 U.S. government document (2010), which depicts a redacted, confidential U.S. government document; Omer Fast’s film 5000 Feet Is the Best (2011), which grapples with drone warfare; An-My Lê’s photographic depictions of war and military culture that play with fact and fiction; and photographs and a film by Eric Gottesman that are inspired by his exploration of the dissident Ethiopian novel Oromaye.