ABSTRACT
The project of artistic historiography is challenged by the Anthropocene even as artists and theorists often have joined in criticism of the concept. The timeline progresses to the year 2000, with a recapitulation of the legal disputes of several Sioux groups against the US government that have been ongoing since the1980s. In contrast to academic history, Godfrey suggest, artistic approaches are freer in their use of methodology; also, they tend to focus on reconstructing rather than on deconstructing history. Thus artistic historiography is not limited to making events visible or understandable but rather makes the significance of not understanding understandable; it sets forth how problematic, changeable, and manipulative are the tools of what understanding supposedly entails—narrative and pictorial structures, explanations, interpretations, etc—laying bare the pitfalls and limitations of such a claim.
