[pp ] Metamorphosis. Detail Lightjet print on diasec cm aluminium box edge. 160 x 160 cm. [pp ]

Transcription

1 Hubertus von Amelunxen Translation [pp ] Metamorphosis. Detail Lightjet print on diasec cm aluminium box edge. 160 x 160 cm. [pp ] Metamorphosis. Detail Lightjet print on diasec cm aluminium box edge. 160 x 160 cm. 161

2 Hubertus von Amelunxen Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Etiam rhoncus. Maecenas tempus, tellus eget condimentum rhoncus, sem quam semper libero, sit amet adipiscing sem neque sed ipsum. Nam quam nunc, blandit vel, luctus pulvinar, hendrerit id, lorem. Maecenas nec odio et ante tincidunt tempus. Donec vitae sapien ut libero venenatis faucibus. Nullam quis ante. Etiam sit amet orci eget eros faucibus tincidunt. Duis leo. Sed fringilla mauris sit amet nibh. Donec sodales sagittis magna. Sed consequat, leo eget bibendum sodales, augue velit cursus nunc, quis gravida magna mi a libero. Fusce vulputate eleifend sapien. Vestibulum purus quam, scelerisque ut, mollis sed, nonummy id, metus. Nullam accumsan lorem in dui. Cras ultricies mi eu turpis hendrerit fringilla. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; In ac dui quis mi consectetuer lacinia. Nam pretium turpis et arcu. Duis arcu tortor, suscipit eget, imperdiet nec, imperdiet iaculis, ipsum. Sed aliquam ultrices mauris. Integer ante arcu, accumsan a, consectetuer eget, posuere ut, mauris. Praesent adipiscing. Phasellus ullamcorper ipsum rutrum nunc. Nunc nonummy metus. Vestibulum volutpat pretium libero. Cras id dui. Aenean ut eros et nisl sagittis vestibulum. Nullam nulla eros, ultricies sit amet, nonummy id, imperdiet feugiat, pede. Sed lectus. Donec mollis hendrerit risus. Phasellus nec sem in justo pellentesque facilisis. Etiam imperdiet imperdiet orci. Nunc nec neque. Phasellus leo dolor, tempus non, auctor et, hendrerit quis, nisi. Curabitur ligula sapien, tincidunt non, euismod vitae, posuere imperdiet, leo. Maecenas malesuada. Praesent congue erat at massa. Sed cursus turpis vitae tortor. Donec posuere vulputate arcu. Phasellus accumsan cursus velit. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Sed aliquam, nisi quis porttitor congue, elit erat euismod orci, ac placerat dolor lectus quis orci. Phasellus consectetuer vestibulum elit. Aenean tellus metus, bibendum sed, posuere ac, mattis non, nunc. Vestibulum fringilla pede sit amet augue. In turpis. Pellentesque posuere. Praesent turpis. Aenean posuere, tortor sed cursus feugiat, nunc augue blandit nunc, eu sollicitudin urna dolor sagittis lacus. Donec elit libero, sodales nec, volutpat a, suscipit non, turpis. Nullam sagittis. Suspendisse pulvinar, augue ac venenatis condimentum, sem libero volutpat nibh, nec pellentesque velit pede quis nunc. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Fusce id purus. Ut varius tincidunt libero. Phasellus dolor. Maecenas vestibulum mollis diam. Pellentesque ut neque. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. In dui magna, posuere eget, vestibulum et, tempor auctor, justo. In ac felis quis tortor malesuada pretium. Pellentesque auctor neque nec urna. Proin sapien ipsum, porta a, auctor quis, euismod ut, mi. Aenean viverra rhoncus pede. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Ut non enim eleifend felis pretium feugiat. Vivamus quis mi. Phasellus a est. Phasellus magna. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Curabitur at lacus ac velit ornare lobortis. Curabitur a felis in nunc fringilla tristique. Morbi mattis ullamcorper velit. Phasellus gravida semper nisi. Nullam vel sem. Pellentesque libero tortor, tincidunt et, tincidunt eget, semper nec, quam. Sed hendrerit. Morbi ac felis. Nunc egestas, augue at pellentesque laoreet, felis eros vehicula leo, at malesuada velit leo quis pede. Donec interdum, metus et hendrerit aliquet, dolor diam sagittis ligula, eget egestas libero turpis vel mi. Nunc nulla. Fusce risus nisl, viverra et, tempor et, pretium in, sapien. Donec venenatis vulputate lorem. Morbi nec metus. Phasellus blandit leo ut odio. Maecenas ullamcorper, dui et placerat feugiat, eros pede varius nisi, condimentum viverra felis nunc et lorem. Sed magna purus, fermentum eu, tincidunt eu, varius ut, felis. In auctor lobortis lacus. Quisque libero metus, condimentum nec, tempor a, commodo mollis, magna. Vestibulum ullamcorper mauris at ligula. Fusce fermentum. Nullam cursus lacinia erat. Praesent blandit laoreet nibh. Fusce convallis metus id felis luctus adipiscing. Pellentesque egestas, neque sit amet convallis pulvinar, justo nulla eleifend augue, ac auctor orci leo non est. Quisque id mi. Ut tincidunt tincidunt erat. Etiam feugiat lorem non metus. Vestibulum dapibus nunc ac augue. Curabitur vestibulum aliquam leo. Praesent egestas neque eu enim. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Fusce a quam. Etiam ut purus mattis mauris sodales aliquam. Curabitur nisi. Quisque malesuada placerat nisl. Nam ipsum risus, rutrum vitae, vestibulum eu, molestie vel, lacus. Sed augue ipsum, egestas nec, vestibulum et, malesuada adipiscing, dui. Vestibulum facilisis, purus nec pulvinar iaculis, ligula mi congue nunc, vitae euismod ligula urna in dolor. Mauris sollicitudin fermentum libero. Praesent nonummy mi in odio. Nunc interdum lacus sit amet orci. Vestibulum rutrum, mi nec elementum vehicula, eros quam gravida nisl, id fringilla neque ante vel mi. Morbi mollis tellus ac sapien. Phasellus volutpat, metus eget egestas mollis, lacus lacus blandit dui, id egestas quam mauris ut lacus. Fusce vel dui. Sed in libero ut nibh placerat accumsan. Proin faucibus arcu quis ante. In consectetuer turpis ut velit. Nulla sit amet est. Praesent metus tellus, elementum eu, semper a, adipiscing nec, purus. Cras risus ipsum, faucibus ut, ullamcorper id, varius ac, leo. Suspendisse feugiat. Suspendisse enim turpis, dictum sed, iaculis a, condimentum nec, nisi. Praesent nec nisl a purus blandit viverra. Praesent ac massa at ligula laoreet iaculis. Nulla neque dolor, sagittis eget, iaculis quis, molestie non, velit. Mauris turpis nunc, blandit et, volutpat molestie, porta ut, ligula. Fusce pharetra convallis urna. Quisque ut nisi. Donec mi odio, faucibus at, scelerisque quis, convallis in, nisi. Suspendisse non nisl sit amet velit hendrerit rutrum. Ut leo. Ut a nisl id ante tempus hendrerit. Proin pretium, leo ac pellentesque mollis, felis nunc ultrices eros, sed gravida augue augue mollis justo. Suspendisse eu ligula. Nulla facilisi. Donec id justo. Praesent porttitor, nulla vitae posuere iaculis, arcu nisl dignissim dolor, a Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Etiam rhoncus. Maecenas tempus, tellus eget condimentum rhoncus, sem quam semper libero, sit amet adipiscing sem neque sed ipsum. Nam quam nunc, blandit vel, luctus pulvinar, hendrerit id, lorem. Maecenas nec odio et ante tincidunt tempus. Donec vitae sapien ut libero venenatis faucibus. Nullam quis ante. Etiam sit amet orci eget eros faucibus tincidunt. Duis leo. Sed fringilla mauris sit amet nibh. Donec sodales sagittis magna. Sed consequat, leo eget bibendum sodales, augue velit cursus nunc, quis gravida magna mi a libero. Fusce vulputate

3 Hubertus von Amelunxen

4 Hubertus von Amelunxen In Transition Lambda print on diasec. Three 205 x 44 cm triptychs hung in a grid. Euphoria & Beyond exhibition at Empty Quarter Gallery, Dubai Deir Yassin massacre in April He stayed in it for thirty-eight days, taking photographs of objects utensils, walls, pictures visually frisking the history of the place. Then, in his parental home and in other houses in the Old City of p.169 p.23 The 38 days of re-collection bring about transferences. Sabella s own house has become an image superimposed by images of an occupied house. As in Till the End, the retrieved objects are exhibited in display cases, like archaeological items, histori- The 38 days of re-collection bring about an updating of history that still awaits its correspondence here, in thirty-eight vedute, fragmented and ruined accumulations of time. This work of art turns the bitterness of exile into the sensuality of the search. Jerusalem, he removed pieces of walls, little bits cal excavations, and finds belonging to two eras, In these superimpositions, where images, periods of painted plaster, or just of stained chalk. The one placed upon the other, each with its own dura- of time, and material combine, a work of mourn- color photographs were copied onto black-and- tion. These are splinters of time, splinters of exis- ing is carried out that at the same time has an white film, and the pieces of fresco, flayed bits of tence, and in their fragile materiality they carry aesthetic and epistemological element. It is not wall, were covered in an emulsion, and the nega- within them proximity and distance, at one and that what is past casts its light on what is pres- tives from the house he lived in projected and the same time. It is as if, contrary to all physical ent or what is present its light on what is past, fixed on that emulsion. Because of the different laws, moments in time and space had found them- rather the image is that wherein what has been colors of the carrier, the black-and-white images selves again, and now a moment carries a half a comes together in a flash with the now to form a take on a mysterious, dreamlike presence that century into our time as a result of the mere touch constellation. In other words: image is dialectics really belongs to no place and no time. They look of light, just as the moment, the instant, donates at a standstill. 60 Benjamin is referring not to the ghostly; are the absence of presence and the pres- its own present to the past again. Sabella collected continuous time between past and present, but to ence of absence, and it is hard to decide which the moments, gathered them up like Baudelaire s the erratic dialectical time-jumping from what If we understand irony as a riposte or a horror place or time they belong to. The carrier, the rag-and-bone man gathered together the image of has been to what is now. 61 What the medium of on the part of a counterpart, a negation embrac- fresco, is no thinner than photographic paper yet history into a constellation of the present from photography does is bring about this constellation ing the existing and employing the affirmation of much more fragile, like a dried piece of parch- fragments, residues, what had been abandoned of encounter and riposte, operating against time, the existing, then the irony in the appearance of ment, and can be regarded as something that can and picked up. The original pieces of wall fres- as it were, and against the agenda of photography. the image results in, as Sören Kierkegaard puts disintegrate just by being touched. coes determined the place; they were the place The artistic work of Steve Sabella undertakes its it, the appearance not being the essence but the The national disaster, the Nakba, destroyed from which they were removed to be infused with process of translation not so as to produce similari- opposite of the essence. 54 Kierkegaard s under- the homeland of the Palestinians in May another time. The palimpsest-like amalgama- ties or a mimesis of approximation, but to reflect standing of irony is apt for describing Sabella s More than seven hundred thousand Palestinians tion of the colorful frescoes and the black-and- on the inherent conditions of pictoriality (Bildhaft- singular use of the palimpsest. The expression of were forced to leave their houses and not permitted white photographs developed on them convey the igkeit) and its historical sediments an imagology irony, as the infinite absolute negativity (and to return to them. 57 As we are all aware, this dislo- impression of a present simultaneously appearing of dissemination. The work on the 38 days days of any addition must by its essence be understood cation had catastrophic consequences for the peo- and disappearing. It is as if the light were spread re-collection lasted from the first year of his exile as a negativity), is engaged in negation and thus ple of Palestine, who over the subsequent decades carefully over the fragile plane with a brush, as in 2009 to this year, 2014, and hence embraces the [irony] destroys the given reality by means of would be dispersed, ghettoized, imprisoned, or if to preserve the latency of the image in all its other works done during that period. p.169 that very given reality. 55 The 2014 work 38 days exiled. The wars, the settlement policy, and the potential and also to see it as an image. The true In 2010 Sabella created the work In Transi- p.101 of re-collection, begun a year after Sabella s exile intifadas have caused unbearable sacrifices. In one image of the past flits by, writes Benjamin on the tion, a tableau of nine color photographs of trees, p.23 in 2009, is the result of a process of multiple of his poems Mahmoud Darwish describes the visit concept of history, and, which as in Euphoria, have the sky as their hori- p.113 imprints, like Till the End and yet quite different. The work adheres to a strict principle; it is subject to a compulsion to bring things together that construct history in its very breaches, of life, of suffering, of distortions, and hopes. It is not about the reconstruction of history but about the act of photographing as disaster, following Maurice Blanchot s The Writing of the Disaster and its cen- made by Edward Said to a place near the house in Jerusalem in which he was born:... I stood like a beggar at the doorstep. Do I ask permission, from strangers who sleep In my own bed, to visit myself for five minutes? Do I The past can be seized only as an image, which flashes up at the instant it can be recognized and is never seen again. 59 zon; that is to say, they are taken from a diagonal vertical angle, the head turned to the firmament and without a view of the body. The firmament thus flashes into view behind the treetops twirling in the dizziness of the gaze. The different movements in the nine photographs, arranged in three horizontal sequences, put the viewer, me, in a state of delirium. The circular movement, in which the tral statement: The disaster ruins everything, Bow respectfully to those world rises and falls as if in serpentines, stopped all the while leaving everything intact. 56 In 2009 who reside in my childhood dream? in each individual image and dynamized again in Sabella rented a house in Ein Karim in Jerusa-... Would they the correspondence between the images, seems to lem, which a Palestinian family had abandoned, Say to me: There s no place for two cast off any burden in the frenzy, like a wet dog to secure themselves, when they heard about the dreams in one bed? 58 shaking to dry himself. Dancing images, albeit a 54 Sören Kierkegaard, Über den Begriff der Ironie: Mit ständiger Rücksicht auf Sokrates, in collaboration with Rose Hirsch, trans. Emanuel Hirsch, in Gesammelte Werke, part 31 (Regensburg: Eugen Diederichs Verlag, 1961), p Ibid., p Maurice Blanchot, The Writing of Disaster, trans. Ann Smock (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1986). 57 See also Ilan Pape, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2nd ed. (London: Oneworld Publications, 2007). 58 Mahmoud Darwish, Counterpoint: For Edward Said, in If I Were Another, trans. from the Arabic by Fady Joudah (New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux, 2009) p Walter Benjamin, Werke und Nachlaß: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 19: Über den Begriff der Geschichte, ed. Gérard Raulet (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2010), p. 95; Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), p Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5: Das Passagen-Werk, part 1, ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1982), pp , published in English as Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. R. Tiedemann (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); see also Georges Didi-Huberman, Devant le temps (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 2000), esp. pp Ibid

5 Steve Sabella p.169 p.101 dance macabre. But it can also be a euphoric dance; both border on delirium or longing. The erratic constellation of time in the 38 days of re-collection emerged as a spatial constellation in In Transition, as if there was no back to be concealed, no past to be encountered. And soon there will be a new present for us. If you look back you will see only The exile of your looking back Whereas the horizontal gaze also has a gaze toward the back, demands a looking back, the vertical gaze frees itself of this temporal bond. The earth, the ground, does not look back, nor does it have leniency (Nachsehen). Art truly dissolves the boundaries of life, and the heavenly perspective signifies a delirium of evacuating (Räumen) that applies solely to the here, the undivided on site, the presence beneath the trees. Conversely, the back stands for a non-place and for death. In the short novel Pompes funèbres (Funeral Rites, ) the narrator Jean Genet searches for the place where Jean was shot by a collaborator. He can only see and refer to the place designated by the here, and asks whether it is true that the philosophers doubt the existence of things that are behind them? What speed is required in order to see the behind in the here? The revolution of an airplane propeller? Then you would notice that the things have disappeared, and oneself with them. 63 In Transition actually marks a transition and negotiates, as it were, between the temporal constellation of one s own biographemes of presence and absence, dwelling and exile, identity and loss, and the spatial constellation of possibilities, of alterity. p days of re-collection 2014 Steve Sabella. 38 days of re-collection B&W white film negative (generated from a digital image) printed with B&W photo emulsion spread on color paint fragments collected from Jerusalem s Old City house walls. [I] Diptych 8.9 x 6.8 cm 9.9 x 6.7 cm [II] 45 x 31.5 cm [III] Tetraptych 9 x 7.1 cm 9.4 x 5.1 cm 7.7 x 6.9 cm 5.3 x 8.1 cm [IV] 13.5 x 20.3 cm [VI] 24 x 48 cm [VII] 47.8 x 27.4 cm [VIII] Triptych 19.1 x 12.2 cm 13.1 x 11.3 cm 8.2 x 8.2 cm [IX] 33 x 21.5 cm [X] 10 x 23 cm [XI] 27 x 17 cm [XII] 15 x 20 cm [XIII] Tetraptych 8.5 x 8.9 cm 6.5 x 7.9 cm 6.9 x 5.8 cm 5 x 14.3 cm [XIV] 27 x 23.6 cm [XV] Triptych [XVI] 27.5 x 29.6 cm [XVII] 14 x 19 cm [XVIII] 20 x 15.5 cm [XIX] Diptych 8 x 5.4 cm 12 x 9.8 cm [XX] 6.1 x 13.2 cm [XXI] 16.5 x 11.5 cm [XXII] 27.5 x 21.5 cm [XXIII] 21.2 x 16 cm [XXIV] 7.3 x 5.6 cm [XXV] 28 x 18 cm [XXVI] 16.7 x 10.3 cm [V] Diptych 10.5 x 10.2 cm 12 x 12.2 cm 9.6 x 16.7 cm 16.6 x 12 cm 8.8 x 13.4 cm [XXVII] 15 x 45 cm 62 Mahmoud Darwish, We Were Missing a Present, in Darwish 2007 (see note 53), p See Hubertus von Amelunxen, Reproduction and the Revenant Derrida and Genet, in Symbolic Imprints: Essays on Photography and Visual Culture, ed. Lars Kiel Bertelsen et al. (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1999), pp

6 [I] [II] [XIII] [XIV] [III] [IV] [XV] [XVI] [XVII] [V] [VI] [VII] [XVIII] [XIX] [XX] [VIII] [IX] [XXI] [XXII] [XXIII] [X] [XI] [XII] [XXIV] [XXV] [XXVI] [XXVII]