Archeology
Artist
Jan Wurm
Date2022
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions36 x 36 in. (91.4 x 91.4 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineGift of Mark Wurm
Object number2025.013
DescriptionArtist Statement: Archeology has opened views into a deep past, provided insights, and even rendered some understanding. But the costs have also been extreme: cultural breaches, theft of patrimony, and transgressions of the privileged. In dozens and dozens of visits to the Metropolitan Museum over the years and decades, I have been moved to tears by mummies taken from their resting places.
The emerging figure of the foreign archeologist rises from the mummy case, of the same human clay as the ancient dust, yet willing to penetrate and violate the tomb. This science is a plunder of lives past and arts of a different purpose.
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