Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence

The 12 artists in Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence--Christian Boltanski, Jim Campbell, Michel Delacroix, Laurent Grasso, Jeppe Hein, William Kentridge, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Teresa Margolles, Oscar Munoz, Julie Nord, Rosangela Renno and Regina Silveira--draw on forms of representation associated with phantasmagoria and reframe them around contemporary notions of absence and loss, using spectral effects and immaterial media such as shadows, fog, mist and breath. A "phantasmagoria" was a pre-cinematic theatrical show, devised in France in the late eighteenth century, which gained popularity throughout Europe in the nineteenth century. Long before blockbuster art exhibitions, crowds were wowed by these traveling shows, in which stories were performed with magic lanterns and rear projections that created dancing shadows and frightening melodramatic effects. These lively, interactive events incorporated narrative, mythology and theater in a single art form; they entertained a wide audience and provided a space to consider the otherworldly, mobilizing viewers' anxieties regarding death and the afterlife. This catalogue, produced for the traveling exhibition of the same name, includes a text by curator Jose Roca and his interviews with the 12 artists, as well as a newly commissioned short-fiction piece by Bruce Sterling. The exhibition is co-organized by the Museo de Arte del Banco de la Republica, Bogota, Columbia.