The idea of inheritance was never not a space of imagination: the 19th century abounds with forged pasts and cultural inventions made to substantiate the identities of nation-states. Nicolas Zanoni’s wall piece of woven aluminum seems to recall one such not-quite-recognizable past. A piece of armor? An ornament? A religious prop? This medieval meets sci-fi object settles any fixed idea of history into a productive sense of doubt, reminding us that the appeal of the past has less to do with what we know about it than what we don’t. In the sharp polished metal, we can see our own reflection. If history is a fiction written in artifacts, who gets to be its authors?
