St. Louis, MO
Visions of Antiquity explores the power and persistence of Greek and Roman antiquity in art at the Saint Louis Art Museum, with works ranging from 1500 to the present. Organized into three broad sections – “Knowledge and Order,” “Triumph and Tragedy” and “Remnants and Ruins” – the free exhibition takes a thematic approach to the role of antiquity as a source of inspiration and as a challenge for artists and viewers. With works that reflect a variety of techniques, materials and practices, the exhibition invites visitors into a wide world of artistic response. Works in the exhibition question notions of classical order and draw attention to the fantasies and anxieties generated in these constructions of memory. The resulting visual cacophony testifies to the many ways that what came before can be continually worked and reworked to make sense of the present and shape a new future.