I'm unsure about the standard for revising art that has been shown before. The sacred black-and-white flag at the end of a race has always bothered me. I get that once art is hung, it's considered finished, but then I think about the cave paintings in Lascaux, where different people added animal drawings over many years. Something special can come from allowing time to pass.
While I was wrapping paintings and building crates for an exhibition at the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art in Sedalia, MO., I wanted to complete a painting that distilled the exhibition statement into a few words. The Paradox and Conformity title was OK, but it didn’t capture the repetitive reuse of familiar motifs from one painting to another.
Just after the exhibition was loaded on the truck, a “word of the day” email revealed “stare decisis” as the Latin phrase for "to stand by things decided." In short, it is the doctrine of precedent. Well, there you go. New art activity sourced from past art activity is solid logic and how civilization thinks.
This Island, 2009, acrylic on canvas with rods and finials, 68 x 114 inches
It was too late to finish the painting or change the artist's statement of the Daum exhibition. I installed “This Island” in a concurrent Paradox and Conformity exhibition at the Earlville Opera House. Maybe the painting did not need the Stare Decisis lettering?
Handling and storing “This Island” was frustrating; it was always in the way or forgotten, rolled up, out of sight. With found isolation time of the COVID-19 pandemic I completed my original idea. During December of 2020, I completed and retitled the piece “Stare Decisis”. After 11 years, I rest my case.
Stare Decisis, 2020, acrylic on canvas with rods and finials, 68 x 114 inches