Reveling in Irrationality

IN THEORY, you should not be reading this article at all. In theory, the periodical you hold in your hands, like all print, should have passed out of existence long ago, surrendering unconditionally to the visual image. That at least is the theory. And for those not given to nice distinctions, it is already the case.

Image World, the vertiginously trendy spectacle that has just left the Whitney Museum, is nothing less than an orgiastic celebration of the image’s triumph over everything else in existence. According to one pundit quoted in the catalogue, “To an ever greater extent our experience is governed by pictures, pictures in newspapers and magazines, on television, and in the cinema. Next to these pictures firsthand experience begins to retreat, to seem more and more trivial. While it once seemed that pictures had the function of interpreting reality, it now seems that they have usurped it.” As if this statement were too hedging and indefinite, one of the curators declares that “In the United States, images no longer are the representation of reality; they have become reality itself.”

JG

About the Author

James Gardner

IN THEORY, you should not be reading this article at all. In theory, the periodical you hold in your hands, like all print, should have passed out of existence long ago, surrendering unconditionally to the visual image. That at least is the theory. And for those not given to nice distinctions, it is already the case.

Image World, the vertiginously trendy spectacle that has just left the Whitney Museum, is nothing less than an orgiastic celebration of the image’s triumph over everything else in existence. According to one pundit quoted in the catalogue, “To an ever greater extent our experience is governed by pictures, pictures in newspapers and magazines, on television, and in the cinema. Next to these pictures firsthand experience begins to retreat, to seem more and more trivial. While it once seemed that pictures had the function of interpreting reality, it now seems that they have usurped it.” As if this statement were too hedging and indefinite, one of the curators declares that “In the United States, images no longer are the representation of reality; they have become reality itself.”