Art That Insists—Persistence with Urgency

Abstract

The Winter 2003 issue of Art Journal featured a thoughtful and alarming forum on the looting and destruction of historical objects from Iraqi museums and other institutions following the early stages of the United States-led invasion and the now legendary, blundering boast of a “mission accomplished.” Three years later, the lamentable conflict and cultural assault remain strikingly unresolved, increasingly violent, and deeply unsettling. Interspersed throughout this issue are images from Perry Bard's project Status: Stolen. White silhouettes—blanks or absences—placed on orange-alert backgrounds signify a handful of the many historical artifacts plundered from the Baghdad Museum during the first days of a seemingly interminable occupation. This vivid physical evidence remains missing in action—an erasure of a past that renders the present and future vulnerable and incomplete. With so many others, I wish that Bard's eloquently restrained project, introduced here in a text by Gregory Sholette, had become less relevant—no longer so urgently consequential—but I am grateful for the vigilance it stimulates.