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In a 1965 essay on postwar science-fiction films Susan Sontag noted a common ingredient: a ''depersonalization'' of the characters, a kind of emotionless zombie state that occurred when their minds were taken over by aliens or robots. Some of this, she wrote, reflected the basic conditions of modern life. But it also pointed toward something new in the nuclear era. Now humans had to contend not only with the fear of death but also the ''psychologically insupportable'' possibility of a ''collective incineration and extinction which could come at any time, virtually without warning.'' Art of the 1960s exhibited similar symptoms of depersonalization. Where anxiety and trauma sat on the surface of slashed, burned and dirt-crusted canvases from the 1940s and '50s, or in the emaciated forms of Giacometti's sculptures, by the late '50s the personal, existential and emotive were replaced by a new detachment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Olympics of contemporary art is happening this summer as nations around the world send artists to represent them at the Venice Biennale. But work that has a biennial flavor -- in other words, it addresses a global audience, but with a local accent -- can be seen closer to home in two shows at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford: ''Shaun Gladwell: Matrix 162'' and ''Connections Gallery: Iona Rozeal Brown.'' One of the artists is even biennial-certified: Mr. Gladwell, along with three others, represented Australia at the 2009 Venice Biennale. The Olympics is a particularly apt analogy for Mr. Gladwell, because his work is couched in sports -- although he leans toward the extreme rather than the I.O.C.-approved. Raised on a steady diet of skateboarding, surfing and other athletic subcultures, Mr. Gladwell has channeled these pursuits into videos that also nod heavily to art history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]