The Llhuros Project will hold an online symposium in honor of the 50th anniversary of the debut of artist and Cornell professor Norman Daly’s multimedia project “The Civilization of Llhuros” on Oct. 8 at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
“Llhuros Symposium 2022 will be a one-day symposium marking the 50th anniversary of ‘The Civilization of Llhuros,’ first presented at the Andrew D. White Museum of Art, at Cornell University in 1972,” the project explained in a press release shared with the Cornell Daily Sun. “Created by long-time Cornell University art professor Norman Daly, ‘The Civilization of Llhuros’ is recognized as the first multimedia work of archeological fiction.”
According to the Llhuros website, Norman Daly was born in Pittsburgh and joined the Department of Art at Cornell in 1942, simultaneously embarking on a successful career as an artist. He created “The Civilization of Llhuros” as a multimedia installation and exhibition composed of artifacts discovered from the titular fictional civilization along with an accompanying set of explanatory texts and commentary. First shown at Cornell in 1972, it is now seen as one of the first famous examples of both fictive art and archeological art. “My project is an original work of fiction presented as a “real” ancient culture,” Daly said about Llhuros in 1988, “with an invitation to the viewer to share with me common appraisals of some human experiences.” The exhibition has since been shown throughout the rest of the United States and Germany as well as in France and at the 2019 Istanbul Biennial, celebrated as “a critique of history as political or moral propaganda” that uses its fabricated status as the remnants of a vanished civilization to encourage viewers to “question the veracity of the historical narratives we are presented in museum displays.”To celebrate Llhuros’s semicentennial, the symposium will hold multiple presentations throughout the day highlighting various themes around “The Civilization of Llhuros” itself, Norman Daly’s career and works from various artists and scholars operating within “post-Llhuroscian contexts.” As part of the proceedings, Cornell Architecture, Art and Planning faculty members Val Werke and Andrea Simitch and former Cornell staff member Marilyn Rivchin are set to participate, along with former students of Daly at Cornell, former art department chair Buzz Spector and a keynote address from fictive art practitioner Antoinette LaFarge. For more information and to register for the virtual event, please visit the symposium’s website.
John Colie is a rising senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at [email protected]. He currently serves as Arts & Culture Editor on The Sun’s 140th Editorial board.