Through his multidisciplinary artistic practice, which includes film, photography, sculpture, and public projects, Jaar explores issues of global resonance, such as migration, discrimination, and unequal power relations. Lament of the Images examines the production, distribution, and interpretation of images. In the first room, three backlit text panels describe the removal and absence of images from the public domain; in the second room is a blinding white screen. The work makes visible a phenomenon of removal and draws attention to the decisionmaking process behind it. It is not about a particular historical event or the exhaustion of certain aesthetic strategies, but rather the future of images in their most reproducible state.
Gallery label from Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection, March 8, 2015–April 11, 2016.