Iconicity Unveiled: Art, Recognition, And Resonance

What makes a work iconic?
What does its rise to visibility—or its absence—reveal about the stories we tell, the memories we preserve, and the communities we shape?

Drawing from the Sursock Museum’s collection, alongside public and private loans, the exhibition explores how recognition, exclusion, and legitimization shape the canon of modern and contemporary art.

Some works emerge as powerful visual markers. Others remain overlooked, displaced, or forgotten. Identity, memory, historical rupture, and recurring motifs become sites of tension—points through which the exhibition interrogates how icons are formed.

Key concepts—such as form, circulation, emblem, community, and absorption—frame the process of iconization as not passive, but deeply political and contested.

Within this framework, certain works reclaim marginalized histories, rework inherited forms, or challenge the capacity of art to embody collective narratives.

Curated by Yasmine Chemali

Visual:
Etel Adnan, Mount Tamalpais, 1985
Oil on canvas
Donated by the artist to the Sursock Museum, 2007

Opening Hours:
Museum: Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Restaurant & Store: Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.