Bruce Adams (1952-2021)

In a letter Bruce Adams provided information that unveils the meaning of his painting:

The title “The Treason of Archeology: this is not a pipe #2” is of course a reference to Magritte’s famous painting in which the artist questioned the nature of our faith in images. The painting considered here is part of a series in which I examined a similar belief system regarding science. Just as Magritte’s painting was not really a pipe, but merely an image of one; the broken object depicted in my painting is no longer a pipe in the practical sense. It has been elevated to the status of artifact, no longer functional, but a great deal more valuable. In the common understanding of the word, it is no longer a pipe.

This is what I allude to as the treason of archeology, a process that alters the nature of that which it observes. The two pith-helmeted individuals represent the popular, romanticized image of archeology, so I adopted an appropriately romantic style in painting them. This part is attached to the surface of the larger canvas, suggesting it was cut from another source and pasted on. The main canvas is unprimed, unstretched, and mounted on the wall with steel push pins. I was working like this at the time partly for practical reasons such as portability, and also because the results seemed more artifact-like than the conventional approach.