Mit den Händen zu greifen und doch nicht zu fassen
(Group Exhibition)
Kunsthalle Mainz
1 September – 19 November 2017
For Mit den Händen zu greifen und doch nicht zu fasse (To See or Not to Be), a group exhibition at Kunsthalle Mainz, Petrit Halilaj presented work from his earlier series Poisoned by men in need of some love, on 1 September – 19 November 2017. The series goes back to the artist’s extensive excavation of the now-defunct Museum of Natural History, Pristina in 2013 and his endeavour of hand-sculpting replicates of nearly all the neglected taxonomic animals found behind the closed doors of the museum’s basement.
“Disappearance” is a term which has possibly never been more paradoxical. In an era when disseminated images and information are updated every second, it signifies a conscious exit from the hectic pace of life, in other words: peace and quiet. But just as much as it is something people desire, it is also one of their greatest fears – who isn’t aware of the anxiety of not being seen, of being consigned to oblivion or becoming forgetful oneself? For millennia, this has been a dread shared by many. Palaces, monuments and artworks have been created in order to commemorate rulers or famous people and keep their memory alive.
Although it’s well known that traces of our Internet usage cannot actually be deleted, because the Internet “forgets” nothing, nowadays the digital world is a sphere where the user can effectively get off the radar. Such notions are also reflected in the way the digital revolution affects us. We’re eager to play with fiction, although it has long since ceased to be fiction. Technical developments mean that computer games seem increasingly real, virtual realities are becoming more tangible, and animated bodies appear authentic. As the boundaries of our four-dimensional world are being dissolved and the virtual domain seeps through, this is accompanied by the process of dematerialising and re-materialising. People retreat from analogue reality into a virtual one, and start living in this non-physical world. And vice versa, virtual realities have long outgrown their online existence. Avatars and cyborgs – whether they are hybrids of artificial and living organisms or entirely synthetic creatures – are pushing back the frontiers and multiplying steadily. Thanks to technical innovations, physically existing bodies are rendered as images and essences.
There are other ways of disappearing, too, namely through disguise and concealment. Whether in a playful context, or while serving the interests of society – for instance spying on enemies of the state, or individuals managing to survive by adopting tactics for not attracting attention in certain circumstances – people adapt externally or internally in order to blend in with their settings.
Ultimately, involuntary disappearances caused by violent interventions or which occur in the course of transformative processes also form a concrete part of our modern-day lives. People, places, cities and their buildings are all subject to acts of destruction as well as natural changes. The Old disappears to make way for the New. Cities and their structures are so overwhelmingly overrun by the processes of transformation that they occasionally completely eliminate a place’s history.
All these preliminary considerations lead us to the question of how the phenomenon of disappearance, with its many connotations, is expressed in contemporary works of art. How do visual artists deal with material which people find so captivating? What mechanisms bring about and control the processes of dissolution? And what can artists do to counteract disappearance?
To See or Not to Be is an exhibition that brings together strategies for disappearance, dissolution and transformation. It first explores physical and mental disappearance, then goes on to consider our approach to these issues, a process that commences as soon as a particular form or material aide de memoire is no longer recognisable.
