Tony Oursler. Hoisted from the Pit - by Marina Isgro & Pascal Rousseau (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

To this day, the » Cardiff Giant« is one of the most incredible scientific forgeries in the history of North American archaeology. The stone figure is named after the site where it was discovered in upstate New York. George Hull, an atheist, had become acquainted with the Bible verse Genesis 6:4 at a methodist revival meeting. It inspired him to have an oversize stone figure carved that he subsequently buried in the ground on the property of his accomplice William Newell. One year later, they arranged to have a well dug on the site, and during the excavation the giant was » discovered« . The sensational discovery of the primeval giant was reported on in newspapers all over the country. The strategy was successful, drawing numerous sightseers who were allowed to view the giant for a fee. Although the figure was soon revealed to be a fake, the story of the giant generated its own momentum that even convinced scholars to develop theories about the prehistoric period. With his » Cardiff Giant«, Tony Oursler creates an entertaining and abysmal parable of double standards and the loss of trust in the great Western narrative of science and progress.

About the Author

Marina Isgro is the curator responsible fort he Museum's collection of media and performances art. She joined the Hirshorn Museum as curator in 2020. There she is curating OSGEMEOS. Endless Story (since 2024 ongoing), Revolutions. Art from the Hirshhorn Collection (2024 ongoing). Marina Isgro presents her work on time-based media widely, with recent talks at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York; the College Art Association's annual conference; the MIT List; and the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, among other institutions. Lynn Kost was from 2004 to 2011 artistic director of the Fumetto - International Comix Festival in Lucerne, before he moved to the Swiss Museum Allerheilingen in Schaffhausen and to Bü ndner Kunstmuseum Chur. Since 2018 Lynn Kost is responsible curator for the program of contemporary art at Kunst Museum Winterthur. Tony Oursler (born 1957) is an American multimedia and installation artist. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the California Institute for the Arts, Valencia, California, in 1979. His art covers a range of mediums, working with video, sculpture, installation, performance, and painting. He lives and works in New York City. Tony Oursler is known for his fractured-narrative handmade videotapes and his dummies where he projects video with faces and bodies. He became famous for the video to David Bowies » Where Are We Now?« (released January 2013). Pascal Rousseau is a professor of contemporary art history at the Université Paris 1 Panthé on-Sorbonne and a specialist in historical avant-gardes, the beginnings of abstraction and the links between visionaries, sciences and technologies in contemporary culture (19th and 20th centuries). He has curated the exhibitions Robert Delaunay. De l' impressionnisme à l' abstraction (Centre Pompidou, 1999), Aux origines de l' abstraction: 1800-1914 (musé e d' Orsay, 2003), Sous influence: Ré surgences de l' hypnose dans l' art contemporain (musé e cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, 2006) et Cosa Mentale.