Ben Koditschek — Creative Designer

I’ve always been curious about the nature of the historical process in which a few artists are selected and canonized, while the vast majority are forgotten. Is it merely a fact that these artists were unquestionably “the best”? Today, it’s very difficult to discuss art with certainty in terms
of good and bad, yet this selection process continues. Most artists are striving to find a celebrated place in this timeline, but only a minuscule amount actually achieve it.
In an attempt to gain a fresh perspective on this mysterious process of art-historical canonization, I decided to map out the art-historical trajectory of the past two hundred years.
I wanted to make the information as objective as possible, and focused on laying out the trajectory in names and number of years living. The timeline stretches 8 feet by 3 feet tall.

The artists I selected for this diagram were taken from a stack of contemporary art books in my school’s library. The selection process I used was admittedly rather unscientific. I compiled a list of those artists who were most written
about and documented, and supplemented it in with my own understanding of who was important. Perhaps my next version will involve a more objectively rigorous selection process.