Category: time

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Holocaust Remembrance

The 80th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau marks a very special kind of remembrance. As the number of survivors of Nazi-terror and genocide is shrinking the testimony of survivors is becoming more rare and more precious. According to the “Jerusalem Post” on 2025-1-28 (p. 9) the number of survivors that came back to the site of horrific crime has shrunk from 300 ten years ago to 50 in 2025. The strength and courage to continue to testify amidst having reached 90+ or even 100+ years of age is a “living memorial” of its own kind.
Many television stations across Europe have followed the example set by this special Holocaust remembrance day and focused equally on recorded testimonies or additional live interviews of survivors. Please keep repeating these testimonies to confront people with the outcome of Nazi-terror in Europe. The choice this year was a courageous one. Instead of speeches of sorrow and lip service to fight antisemitism by acting politicians, the focus on the testimony of survivors in public, on TV and to large audiences will encourage others to continue to give testimonial of these horrors.
(Image: extract of Pressreader newspaper titles 2025-1-27)

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Ukraine Chanson

The Russian war in Ukraine is not limited to the military killings. From the earliest period in 2014 already Russia initiated a war on Ukraine culture and Ukrainian cultural heritage. Therefore, it is great to witness the efforts by Ukrainian musicians not only to retrieve their rich heritage for example in the field of chansons, but to develop traditional songs with new formats. Jazzy versions of children’s songs have been sung with an admirable soft voice by singer and composer Viktoria Leléka and her band.
Most people might think of children’s songs as an insignificant niche of music. The importance of singing songs for children and babies is a scientifically well documented finding. Early bonds are created and a sense of belonging and comfort, particularly during difficult times of life. Comforting music is also an intergenerational issue. Transmission of emotions and values across generations is the very fabric of societies. The recent album “Kolysanky” and the song “Ne Zhal” is a great reminder that it is the children that count not the, maybe, broken cradle.
During the war time with many absent fathers, chansons can bridge the emotional hardships. The movie “The Chorist” had demonstrated the power of children songs for children, their parents and all generations involved. Chansons have a much longer “half-time of life” than war.
From an unknown French composer the cradle song “Fais dodo Colin …” and Brahm’s Wiegenlied are classics many people in Europe will remember from their childhood and still transmit them today. Great news that Ukraine continues this tradition with new, innovative adaptations of their own lively cultural heritage.
(Image: extract of lyrics Ne Zhal’, from webpage)

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Review Year

It is a nice common practice to wish „A happy New Year“ to people at the beginning of another calendar year. It is also a good practice to review the last twelve months yourself or with friends. We spend,however, much less time to listen to friendly or enemy fire as a kind of evaluation of what were the successes and failures of last year. In monarchies in the middle ages a clown or a fool was allowed to present criticisms with funny packaging. Nowadays, comedians have taken over this important role to review experiences and policies that worked or went awfully wrong. All media join in in this tradition and summarize what happened before the next busy months take over. Yes, it is important to devote time to this procedure. There is a risk that it becomes „the same procedure as every year“, but it is never to late to learn from failures or simple mistakes. Failed last year, fail better next year. 

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Zerreissprobe

The term „Zerreissprobe“ has been chosen by the curator team of the Neue Nationalgalerie In Berlin for the Retrospective of „Art between politics and society“ in the years 1945-2000. In this time period after the 2nd World War until the other „fin du siècle“ the politics of creating a new world order, the cold war and the liberalization of societies had profound impacts on art as well. The positioning of art in the dynamic context and conflicts of these decades is quite well reflected in the title of the exhibition. The English title „extreme tension“ suggests somehow that these years were rather extreme compared to ?, probably today? Although on the territory of Ukraine we witness a hot war rather than a cold war initiated by Putin‘s Russian imperial illusions. The cited work of Günter Brus „Zerreissprobe“ is translated as „stress test“. And maybe, this translation characterizes the post war period even better as these years are a forerunner of what happened after 2000. We continue to be put to tests in politics and societal developments. Accomplishments from the last century are put to crude tests again. Solidarity of people and nations are under pressure to demonstrate their reliability under extreme tension or stress. Art throughout the 5 decades of the last century was a precursor of stress tests for politicians and challenged society in its basic understandings. The comments on the notice board next to the exhibition show the themes of tension in the 2020s. Tensions in families and partnerships, often more extreme around christmas trees, have taken center stage for younger visitors of the exhibition. Sociological research has observed such trends and coined this societal phenomenon „individualization“.  Art embedded in society seems to be part of that evolution as well. Art movements are less visible as collective movements. Artists appear more individualistic or ideosyncratic nowadays, just less inclined to be part of a defining larger group. If artists are no longer avantgarde but rather followers of societal trends, the whole „raison d‘être“ of art changes as well. We are likely to witness yet another „ Zerreissprobe“. Cuts to art and culture budgets constitute an additional „ Zerreissprobe“ in the original sense of the word and of art between politics and society in 2024/2025.

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Films of Stills

The exhibition of multimedia artist Nan Goldin at the Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) in Berlin presents a retrospective of her work using slideshows of stills including soundtracks (Image below). The topics and narratives range from autobiographical work on own traumatic experiences to works entitled „memory lost“. The sequences of stills are a form to deal with trauma through art like overcoming the suicide of a family member. Drug or sexual dependency enter the stills and it becomes clear that stillness is part of the coping mechanism she employs. It is hard to watch, sit still and endure the films of stills. However, there is a kind of therapeutic experience to be gained in coping with trauma through art. The installation in several tents increases the reclusive atmosphere and entering the still rooms invites is, somehow including a warning of what kind of chilling experience we are up to throughout the exhibition. The almost therapeutic experience needs to be handled with care and a visit with friends or family is highly recommended in my view. Community and communication are key to coping with these experiences and even still images contribute to building resilience.

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Famous Neighbors

Sometimes people believe they can catch a bit of fame, if they live in a prominent neighborhood. Next to a famous person or the glamor surrounding such a place is inspiring. In Berlin the honor or fame is transmitted for example with the street names of composers. Everybody knows Johann Sebastian Bach and around Christmas time many of his compositions will be performed again. Directly next to Bach street we find Flotow street. It needs a bit of info about music and music history to identify the honor for Flotow to appear next to Bach. Well, Berlin you are „wunderbar“. You have made my day just on one of the first few days of the direct train connection between Paris and Berlin started. We grow together in small steps.

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Parallel Universe

Sometimes, it might well be before during or after presidential elections, you feel like living in a parallel universe. Especially after the U.S. presidential election many people beyond the U.S. have the impression that millions of people have rather strange views of how our living on earth could be worthwhile for all, rather than a few. In a crude and rude election campaign many people in the U.S. must have been alienated from what they imagine a peaceful living together in a country or on our planet. Faced with the brutal language it is soothing and comforting to read books again. Already in 2023 adult fiction has outperformed on the book market in the U.S. “Romantasy” and narrative non-fiction (are the new bestsellers beyond travel books, cooking, children books and comics according to circana.com.
Uncertainty, complexity and plurality, apparently, have destabilised many persons to the extent that foundation texts of religions, predominantly the bible, have become bestsellers again with more than 14 million book sales in the U.S. in 2023 and up to November in 2024. Printed copies as well as specialised editions for children go to new first time readers and buyers as well as replacing older copies. The need to find simplifying answers to basic questions of humanity is on the rise again.
Some persons might wish to find the existence of a parallel universe in studying the bible, others just a retreat from the horrors of daily news on TV and social media, we all consume more than ever before. We are no longer surprised to find the first church in Switzerland, which offers an AI in church which listens and answers to your confessions. Bible apps offer detailed search functions and reading aloud in case you prefer listening.
There are even unauthorised historical translations of the bible on the market in antiques book shops, which achieve exceptional prices.
Of universes, there seem to be many, overlapping and in parallel.
(Image: Reading Magritte on surrealism)

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On Organics

Organics are the new hype. Organics are everywhere. It is true in organic chemistry, biochemistry or pharmaceutical biochemistry we start from organic compounds as the basis for various forms of classification systems, structures and reaction chains. A search for organics brings you to Organic Farming and to lots of other applications of organic production as well as organic design.
The extended definitions highlight the foundation in biology and chemistry to then include any processes which integrate cyclical reproduction or resources and conservation of biodiversity. Based on the plurality of forms and connectivity of organic compounds this leads to a vast and diversified basis of carbon- and hydrogen-based life on earth. The ensuing complexity (variety of species) has been the basis for mankind to come into being. It is likely to determine also our survival in the long run. Organics is based on open as well as closed forms and therefore has an encompassing nature. Depending on time and space constellations (temporality) evolution has taken one or the other path. We are certainly not at the end of this evolution, although we through the loss of biodiversity we narrow down new potentials in an unprecedented way. Rethinking life on earth from a cell-based perspective of plastics and chloroplasts is a challenge, but it will lead us on towards the “organic turn” in the 21st century.

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On Temporality

Time is passing, or is it? We tend to confound time, with passing of time or an occurrence at a specific point in time. Time has a static use, which refers to a date of birth or date of death. Time refers to durations like the lifetime or time in office of a person or a political leader. In most such cases time is considered as a continuous and linear process. The concept of temporality questions these common perspectives on time to allow additional time perspectives in the description and understanding of time.
Temporality is linked to a more flexible view on the periodization of history. The time before and after the 12 years of Nazi-terror will then be part of the extended periodization of the Nazi-Regime in Germany and Europe. Similarly, temporality widens the perspective on social phenomena by linking historical events to the time before and maybe even to what follows, seen as a consequence of the temporal and spacial co-evolution.
A deviation from the static view of time and a rigid periodization of fascism allows to study the Russian male dominated political authoritarianism as a new wave of fascism in Europe, which negates the right of existence of the state of Ukraine in its neighborhood.
Temporality expresses the need to go beyond a simplel periodization to include a spacial dimension  in the defintion of time, much like modern physics does in relativity theory. Temporality, therefore, opens up a “thought space” beyond just the timing of events, which may challenge many of our day-to-day experiences. Cultures with a different understanding of time or the pace of time become a “sound board” for our way of considering and being captured in a time space. Probably many artists are forerunners in playing with time and the way time is “treating” them. Most of them face(d) hardship during their lifetime, but have an extended “after life” in terms of reputation. Some contribute to the perodization in the arts and of their time. They all shape(d) temporality.
(Image: extract from Hans Bol, 1593 Ring Jousing in front of a pond inan  imaginary city, MRBAB, Brussels)

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History’s Weight

The artist Damien Deroubaix is currently exposed at the BNF.fr in its historic site Richelieu. Together with and next to some of the historic treasures of the BNF collections the unique exhibition allows to experience history’s weight on our current existence. The work of Deroubaix is following and pursuing historic art trajectories with a special historical and ethical consciousness. Techniques of art are insensitive to the moral compass of the painter in history. The collections of the BNF like all major European collections have to handle their colonial past and immoral depictions throughout history. Deroubaix accomplished to liberate techniques of art of their colonial linkages and imagination of emperors focusing on humanitarian values. War is horror, in the past and in the present. Genocide in Rwanda is war crime and dealing with the memories of people an honorable way to look forward conscious of the past. Hybrid forms of art allow multiple contextualizations of his work. In the Galerie Mansart and Pigott of the BNF the historical embedding enriches the art and vice versa. Art allows us to rise beyond the ashes mankind has and continues to inflict on us. (Images: extracts of Damien Deroubaix at BNF, Paris 2024)