Lunchtime Talk: Elyse Gerstenecker

In response to The Inside World: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Memorial Poles, this exhibition highlights works in The Fralin’s permanent collection in which twentieth and twenty-first century artists have tackled history and the challenges of collective memory. Figures of Memory examines the ways in which artists have depicted, referenced, and even toyed with the remembrance of things past. These works probe the nature of commemoration, questioning the selectivity of collective memory. This exhibition also explores the relevance of the artists’ chosen subjects for issues in their contemporary moment, underscoring the influence of the present upon our understanding of the past.