René Daniels (B. 1950)

The series of paintings and drawings 'Hystoria Mysteria' is composed using several motifs. In this drawing, we see New York's Brooklyn Bridge depicted, crushing with lightning force Paris' Arc de Triomphe on the Place de l'toile. The left half of the paper is of a light tonality and marked with a 'D' (possibly for 'Day'), the right half is dark and marked with 'N' (possibly for 'Night'). New York versus Paris: the difference between night and day. The work refers to the post war changes in the art world where New York, instead of Paris, became the centre. In 1983, Serge Guilbaut argues in his revolutionary study How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art (Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War) that this artistic showdown between the United States and Europe was not only aesthetically and stylistically but also ideologically loaded.