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On View> Aspen Art Museum presents "Décor: A Conquest"

On View> Aspen Art Museum presents "Décor: A Conquest"

 

Décor: A Conquest
Aspen Art Museum
637 East Hyman Avenue, Aspen, Colorado
Through March 1, 2015

Objects of war have long been used for decorative purposes. Mounted on walls and thus removed from their original context, these weapons take on new meaning. In his inaugural exhibition for the Institute of Contemporary Art in London in 1974, Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaer explored this familiar, yet strange dual identity of weapons as everyday objects but also as “symbols of power.” The Aspen Art Museum, in its new building by Shigeru Ban, has reinstalled this pioneering work.

The exhibit features two period rooms, XIXth Century and XXth Century, that show weapons arranged in domestic-like settings: outdoor lawn furniture is placed near a wall of guns in one room, and canons line up not far from candelabras and dining room chairs in an adjoining space. The museum describes Décor as “a complex investigation into the function of both history and museology.”


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