Interpretacje nieobecności i obecności historii w artystycznych projektach wizualnych

Abstract

Interpreting the presence and absence of history in artistic visual projects

In the article I analyze selected artistic projects presented at international art exhibitions - 55. The Biennial of Art in Venice (2013) and Documenta (13) in Kassel (2012). What binds the projects is the historical connotation which becomes a pre-text for artistic creation. The artists were inspired by unwritten events, yet determined by the presence of other facts. The origin of the topics are military conflicts which provoke questions concerned with experiencing violence, as well as nationalist ideologies confronted with the ideas of humanism. What is more, the ethic part of these projects becomes a value of itself, which is particularly visible in the non-traditional form. The projects described are as follows: Letter to a Refusing Pilot by Akram Zaatari, an installation by Zsolt Asztalos entitled Fired but Unexploded and a countermonument by Horst Hoheisel in Kassel. Akram Zaatari uses an anecdote, a mysterious historical detail as an exemplum of the event which deconstructs the official political order. The installation by Zsolt Asztalos Fired but Unexploded mentions dormant conflicts which nonetheless bear the same historic burden. A negative reconstruction of a fountain called Jewish by Horst Hoheisel found in Kassel, is a postulate of revoking traumatic history.

Key words: military conflict; counterhistory; anecdote; modern art; counter-monument;