Anselm Kiefer’s archaeological sensibility

Four new works from Anselm Kiefer go on exhibition at Gagosian Le Bourget, Paris, February 7. Marvelous manifestations of the archaeological imagination – [Link] What interests me is the transformation, not the monument. I don’t construct ruins, but I feel ruins are moments when things show themselves. A ruin is not a catastrophe. It is…

Ruins – Josef Koudelka

Thoughts on the universality and valency of ruination. With a comment about the toppling of statues of erstwhile heroes. A couple of months ago Alain Schnapp was talking with me about his new book, a universal history of ruins, an exploration of an archaeological sensibility that takes us back to antiquity [Link]. I have just…

Ossian – archaeological memory

Project: Borderlands – [Link] Toscar: I shall sit in my cave in the field of the sun. The blast will rustle in my trees, and I shall think it is the voice of Culhona. Culhona: What cloud is that? It carries the ghosts of my fathers. Locale, genius loci, weather, voices on the wind, the…

materiality of the invisible

Yesterday I had the great honor to open a remarkable exhibition of artworks at the Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht – multiform institute for fine art, design and reflection Curators: Lex ter Braak, Director of Van Eyck and Huib Haye van der Werf, Head of Artistic Program. The exhibition runs through The Van Eyck Academie, Marres,…

midsummer

Fieldwork in the English/Scottish borders. Molly and I were out late this midsummer evening, walking and talking – at Bamburgh, court and capital of the Kingdom of Northumbria in the seventh and eighth centuries. Below us, on the beach, (we found out via Gilbert (Cockton) on Facebook) Alex Braidford was capturing the strawberry moonrise –…