On the Margins

The iconography of war and disaster have shaped the first years of the twenty-first century, both in the United States and throughout the world. On the Margins brings together a culturally diverse group of international artists whose work engages the platitudes associated with troubling themes, while addressing contemporary social and political conditions through a wide spectrum of styles and media.

The exhibition aims in part at underscoring the contrast between the realities of disaster and how they are presented—what we see and what we don't see—through the lens of today's media. Created in the past seven years, all of the works included in On the Margins consider the ways in which war and conflict around the world affect—or fail to affect—our everyday life. The roster of contributing artists is diverse and talented: Adel Abidin, Laylah Ali, Paolo Canevari, Enrique Chagoya, Willie Cole, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Willie Doherty, Jane Hammond, Martha Rosler, and Do-Ho Suh. The exhibition was curated by Carmon Colangelo, and the catalog features essays by Eleanor Heartney and Paul Krainak addressing the themes and artworks in the exhibition, as well as an illustrated checklist and full artist biographies.

Carmon Colangelo is dean of the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts and the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. His work is included in the collections of a number of museums including the National Museum of Art in Washington, D. C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City; and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. Eleanor Heartney is a contributing editor at Art in America and Artpress and has published a number of books on contemporary art and art theory, including most recently Art and Today. Paul Krainak is the chair of the Department of Art at Bradley University.