Ephemeral vistas

The international exhibitions held around the world between 1851 and 1939 were spectacular gestures, which briefly held the attention of the world before disappearing into an abrupt oblivion, of the victims of their planned temporality. Known in Britain as Great Exhibitions, in France as Expositions Universelles and in America as World's Fairs, the genre became a self-perpetuating phenomenon, the extraordinary cultural spawn of industry and empire. Thoroughly in the spirit of the first indu...