Unbound by tradition, uninhibited by fear, each American is free to invent “an original relation to the universe,” or so said Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1836. Since then, a uniquely American idea of self-creation has been reduced to its opposite, as we learn to define ourselves through consumerist choice in everything from art to politics.
The work of memory is to recall what has been lost.
Carter Ratcliff – art critic, author, poet