Abstract
Art that rhymes with the past is inherently and inextricably linked with that past. Rhyme cannot occur without a manifestation of similarity to something that already exists. Rhyme relies for its validity on memory of, sensitivity to, and connection with what has gone before, a looking-back while concurrently being in the present, a simultaneous comparison and contrast. On the other hand, aesthetic practices that appropriate art of the past through surface duplication and repetition often deliberately eliminate attachment and meaning. These appropriated images, even if fully absorbed in a visual sense, can remain separate entities, detached from any contextual tendons. Stylistic homage can become a skin that is stretched thin, showing none of the muscular connective tissue that would indicate the existence of an underlying structure. This paper explores the vein of artistic practice in which the past exists in a contextual rhyme with the present, creating meaning as a result of that particular mode of coexistence. Negotiations of the fine line between repetition and rhyme are investigated through the works of contemporary artists, and through my own artworks, that integrate past and present. 64