Nick Ross

White Lies

2013 - ongoing

The choices made by those who write and disseminate history can become so deep set that once our understanding changes we are still unable to accept them. We choose to curate or direct the past in the way we want it to be seen as it affirms the decisions we make in the present. If we later find this to be untrue it can question the reasoning behind those past decisions which are in turn based on the then present understanding of past decisions.

In this case I chose to look at our connection with the marble sculptures of the ancient Romans and Greeks. These to us are symbols of artistic and cultural good taste. The opposite of this could be seen as what the Romans might call barbaric. We have known for years that Roman and Greek sculptures were painted, and now thanks to new technology we have been able to re-create some of those vibrant works of art, as they originally might have looked.

Although this is what we would now consider to be true representations we still cannot accept them. To us they are garish, crude and kitsch. But can a new object change our mind-set?