Behind the Shadow: Archaeological Site Design

Our Doublethink Double vision exhibition’s title alludes to George Orwell’s seminal work 1984 and presents a selection that includes Tracey Emin, Marcel Dzama, Anselm Kiefer, Bruce Nauman, Raymond Pettibon, and Thomas Ruff, as well as Turkish artists, tracing the steps of pluralistic thought through works of art.

Our institutions have been stuck on linear Neo-Platonic tracks for 24 centuries. These antiquated processes of deduction have lost their authority. Just like art it has fallen off its pedestal. Legal, educational and constitutional systems rigidly subscribe to these; they are 100% text based.

1638, the year Louis XIV was born –his second name, Dieudonné, alluding to his God-given status– saw the diffusion of a cult of maternity encouraged by the very devout Anne of Austria, in thanks for the miracle by which she had given birth to an heir to the French throne. Simon François de Tours (1606-1671) painted the Queen in the guise of the Virgin Mary, and the young Louis XIV as the infant Jesus, in the allegorical portrait now in the Bishop’s Palace at Sens.