Re-reading the Monuments of the Past

Abstract

Our relationship to place has significant — and variable — value and can provide us with important insights into the current state of society in various periods. Yet with the arrival of communication technologies and media in the course of the 20th century, the sense of belonging of person and place seems to be endangered. This is proved by a swathe of critical reflection on the character of modern society and on the relationship of man and place, beginning with the work of the Frankfurt School formed in the 1920s in Germany. The sense of alienation from the city environment in which most of today’s population lives, as well as the sense of general uprootedness from one’s own living space, meet with a strong response also in the thought and expression outside the field of social sciences. The relationship of man and space has become both a motif and a motivation for the works of contemporary artists and art theorists. The approach of art and art theory, which consists in mastering the specific tools of the language of art, opens a new direction on the reflection of this relationship. On a theoretical level, it calls for a temporary abandonment of the terminological codifications of modern science and for a participation of the imagination on the part of the viewer, allowing him or her to enter a field of common communication. On the practical level, it speaks primarily to the viewer’s senses, producing a new experience of an emotional and personal character.