Phantom

Phantom, Steven Rhude, o/p, 24"x48", Argyle Fine Art



The question on our lips is no longer "why?" Or, "how did this happen?" It's too late for that. 

There is a sense that we are now rummaging through the post modern junkyard and looking for answers. It need not necessarily be only a rational search. This is where the artist comes back into the cultural picture; armed with material from the past, and contextualizing it in the present.


“Society needs symbols, myths, narratives…and modernity cannot just be rationalization”, explains Jeffrey Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology and Co-Director, Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University.

 “We need to understand the power, the energy and the glue that keeps civil society together and motivates people”, from Occupy to Tahrir Square, says Alexander, by trying to redefine the cultural in social theory. Myths, narratives and iconic symbols have disappeared in the course of modernization… But how can cultural sociology bring these important ideas back to the theory of democracy?


http://www.resetdoc.org/story/00000022203


Steven Rhude, Wolfville

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