History, understood as a category of human existence, is older than the written word, claims Hannah Arendt in her book “Between Past and Future”. Its origin – not in a historical but a poetic sense – lies in the moment when at the Phoenician court Odysseus listens the story of his own adventures and misadventures, the story of is own life which at that point becomes a “thing” in itself, separated from him, and presented to others as “an object”.1 In other words, it represents a moment in which history is for the first time symbolically objectified, turned into facts which are later confirmed and reaffirmed, repeatedly with each new act of narration, i.e. presentation. Our experience of a certain space, site, or a topos, is inseparable from our knowledge of its past. Spatial presence of a site is a product of a multitude of macro and micro histories, which can be more or less visible. However, despite the dichotomy between categories of space (the material, visible element) and time, i.e. history (or immaterial and physical elusiveness of time), both are intertwined; neither is the space static, nor the time linear. “Here” is inseparable from “now”; its past and future are elusive. Or, in words of Doreen Massey, “(…) “here” is no more (and no less) than our encounter, and what is made of it. It is, irretrievably, here and now. It won’t be the same “here” when it is no longer now.”2
Lise Harlev’s work “What I Am Told About the Past” is a result of the art residency in Zagreb in February this year. Understanding Zagreb as a locus with its own specific history, the artist observed the ways in which the contemporary traces of this history, as well as her own expectations, have shaped the experience of getting to know the city. On wooden panels, in a very direct way, Harlev articulates a number of statements and questions concerning our perception of the history, its authenticity, nostalgia, and, finally, our universal need for history. At the same time, the background graphic elements create a number of associations – from timelessness of simple geometric shapes, through allusions to the 1950s graphic design, to a reminiscence of sign systems used on info boards at “historically significant” sites. Both elements, the textual and the graphic, thus create a completely new, ambiguous context – a very subjective experience of history, time and space is presented in visually very simple, familiar and recognizable way.
Jelena Pasic, curator of the exhibition
1 Arendt, H. Between Past and Future, London: Penguin Books, 2006: 39
2 Massey, D. For Space, London: SAGE Publications, 2007: 139
Lise Harlev (1973), a Danish artist based in Berlin, studied at Stadelschule, Frankfurt am Main, and The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. Harlev’s work has been included in exhibitions such as Manifesta 4 (Frankfurt am Main, 2002), Something no one else has, Liljevalchs Konsthall (Stockholm, 2003), Momenum (Moss, 2004), I don’t always agree, Galleria Maze (Turin, 2005), This Land is My Land, Kunsthalle Nurnberg (Nuremberg, 2006), I (Ich) / Performative Ontology, Secession (Vienna, 2006), You Won’t Feel a Thing, Wyspa Institute of Art (Gdansk, 2007), Terms of Use, Centro Cultural Montehermoso (Vitoria, 2008), Translation Paradoxes and Misunderstandings, Shedhalle (Zurich, 2008), Liquid Frontiers, Tri Postal (Lille, 2009), Monument to Transformation, Centre for Visual Introspection (Bucharest, 2009) and Watchmen, Liars and Dreamers, Frac Ile-de-France/ Le Plateau (Paris, 2010).
The exhibition is supported by: Ministry of Culture – Republic of Croatia, City of Zagreb – Office for Education, Culture and Sport, Danish Arts Council Committee for International Visual Arts.
28.04. – 14.05.2011.
