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The idea of boundaries to be approached and overcome was a driving force in Modernist mythology. Whether institutional, societal or formal, artists approached boundaries and their limitations, dispensing with them and finding new spaces, values and styles. This heroic myth of the adventurer persists and its vocabulary is still used by many in the Art World. In reality this involved a certain amount of shifting the goalposts so that in the case of institutions, whilst modern art may have fought its way through the salons it re-established other boundaries in institutions such as New York's Museum of Modern Art. These limits have long been illusory and comfortingly self-imposed by a form that finds it increasingly difficult to justify its own existence. Supposedly awesome boundaries appear more like the confines of a playpen with the same nostalgic aura of something that used to present a genuine border to be crossed, an obstacle to be overcome. They used to frustrate all ambition but now think of them without letting out an involuntary aawhhh. In the case of the UK for Brit' Art read British Kite mark. |
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