SUSPECTS

This exhibition catalogue highlights the audacity of artists who, after Vincent van Gogh, have chosen dissidence over conformity and excess over restraint. Whether transgressors, acerbic dissenters, provocateurs, or outcasts, their approaches bear witness to a spirit of freedom and insolence though a bitterness that is more poetic than parodic sometimes lurks behind it. The works brought together and commented on here, dating from the late 20th century to the present day, fulfill one of the primary functions of art in our society: to destabilize convictions, to reconsider what seems to be taken for granted, to broaden our awareness, and to shatter conventions.