By the Bass Museum of Art

Last week, as part of The Bass Museum’s continuing research and programming at the intersection of contemporary art and the art of the Renaissance, Steven Holmes led a conversation about his project CREDIT, joined by fellow Bass Adjunct Curator and former director of the Norton Museum of Art, Roger Ward. CREDIT looks at how the invention of complex financial credit systems gave rise to two renaissances: the Florentine Renaissance in the 15th century and the rapid expansion of Contemporary art as a market and social phenomena over the past decade. Behind both of these seismic cultural events are explosive and ultimately catastrophic innovations in financial systems, which have greatly impacted aesthetic, conceptual and artistic innovations.