Ruptures and Remnants

Works of art can function as remnants and ruptures of a specific culture, time, moment, person or experience. Humans can experience ruptures in metaphorical manners: the experience of feeling in two places at once or having one’s mind occupied by too many disparate thoughts. Societies become fragmented when too many divisive factors overwhelm and disturb fleeting moments of unity. A work can represent these ruptures or fragments by being divided into individual components or it can serve as a partial representation. The remnants can be thread together through understanding, interpretation, and analysis.

What remains when empires fall or journeys come to an end? How do humans adapt to political, economic, social, and cultural changes? While the works in these galleries can function as material manifestations of ruptures, both tiny and momentous, they are also serve as remnants of myriad factors ranging from specific religions and imperial authorities to physical labor and personal experience. Individual perception and collective memory can be fragmentary, but they can inspire physical objects that serve as traces of a particular time, place, or person.

The objects in the Museum’s permanent collection date from antiquity to the present day. The works in this installation periodically change and on occasion feature long-term loans in conversation with works from the permanent collection.