This essay is interested in the role that destruction ans undoing play in the work of the American Ashcan painter George Bellows, and in the relation of these things to the perception of memory and past. It charts the vivid love affair with destruction in a series of four paintings Bellows made between 1907 and 1909. The excavations for a new Pennsylvania Station building in mid-town Manhattan fascinated and horrified New Yorkers, and Bellows responded to the compelling spectacle it provided with what has been called the first 'great drama' of his carrer. In the excavation series and particularly in "Excavation at Night" (1908, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art), Bellows offers us an image of destruction as a fantasy of remarking the vanished past. 'Decreation' in the sense the term is used by Giorgio Agamben in "Potentialities" (1999), and the Freudian concept of 'undoing', provide a way into these meanings. The argument is that the series amounts to a nuanced interrogation of the impulses and implications of the 'rage' to undo both memory and the past.

中文翻译：

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毁灭与毁灭：乔治·贝罗斯 (George Bellows) 的挖掘绘画，1907-1909 年

这篇文章感兴趣的是破坏和撤销在美国 Ashcan 画家 George Bellows 的作品中所扮演的角色，以及这些事物与记忆和过去感知的关系。它描绘了 Bellows 于 1907 年至 1909 年间创作的四幅画作中生动的爱情与破坏的关系。 曼哈顿中城一座新宾夕法尼亚车站大楼的挖掘使纽约人着迷和恐惧，而 Bellows 回应了它提供的引人注目的奇观被称为他的演员的第一部“伟大的戏剧”。在挖掘系列中，尤其是在“夜间挖掘”（1908 年，水晶桥美国艺术博物馆）中，贝娄为我们提供了一种毁灭的形象，是一种对消失的过去进行评论的幻想。'减产' Giorgio Agamben 在“Potentialities”（1999）中使用了这个术语，而弗洛伊德的“撤销”概念提供了一种理解这些含义的方法。争论是，该系列相当于对“愤怒”的冲动和含义进行了细致入微的审问，以消除记忆和过去。