THE LAST JUDGMENT PROJECT
Bumbershoot 2003
August 26 - September 1, 2003
The Rainier Room, Northwest Rooms at SeattleCenter
Seattle, WA

ESSAYS ON THE LAST JUDGMENT PROJECT
Curator's Statement
Introduction
Last and Universal: the Semantics of Judgment
Thought Through Images
Seduced by Freedom of Thought
Art in the Age of Short-Term Memory
A Call to Artists and Audience
Seventeen Modern Tales

The Last Judgment Project at Bumbershoot 2003, the Seattle Arts Festival, was conceived as invitation to artists from all around the world to reflect upon the ideas of justice, judgment and prejudice. It interrogates the reverberations among these three terms and the idea of freedom, not only as an abstract principle, but in the real fabric of contemporary life.

Like a subtle thread, the exhibition will lead the audience
to experience the emotional and visceral aspects of judgment - as seclusion and isolation on one hand, as self-righteousness on the other -, to evaluate the consequences of prejudice and fear and
the relationship between the multitude and the individual, and to reflect on the threat of justice and the unbearable wait for it, in an era when justice is becoming a demand for one whole culture and a threat for another.

I wish to create both a visual and emotional experience for the spectator. The show will confront viewers with the duality and duplicity of human nature, and thereby goad them to consider their own faculties of (self)judgment. I am interested in pushing the viewer to abandon the role of passive spectator and become part of the project itself, an active critic—and critical actor—in the creative process of art.

-Stefano Catalani, curator

Next: Introduction

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