Shimon Attie Lecture. Wed. 11.11.

I really enjoyed the first works that Attie showed, the series from 1991 of the projections onto buildings. That work was effective in its emotional content. The layered messages of pre and post war and the changing government of Berlin at the time was all beautifully captured in these images.

The series of faces projected from underwater was very effective as well. Attie spoke a great deal about the fluidity of memory and the paradox between fluid vs. substantial. The way in which the water warped the portraits was very telling in the way people were changed by the times, by the war and by the horrors they experienced. The means of travel and escape over the water was extremely relevant to jews fleeing the country and immigration in general.

Viewing Attie's later works, the films, with their slow movement, gave me the feeling of being on tour in a natural history museum. The way the subjects were raised on platforms and slowly spinning was very much putting them on display, but it was not cold, or scientific the way we were allowed to view them; it was a tender experience. It's amazing that Attie was able to create that amount of emotion from such a studio influenced shoot, all the while not visibly tampering with the people or the situation beyond posing.

All of Attie's work is heavily steeped in the emotional and political climate of when it was made. The poetry that he displayed before showing the work from Aberfan and the Archaeology of the Racetrack was moving and complemented the work. The words he used to describe his work were telling of what he was communicating. Ethereal, visual, phenomenology, memory, layers, aging. All of these adjectives could easily be extracted from any one of the pieces he displayed. Even his method of showing his work, on a slide projector complemented the conceptual aspects of the pieces.

I love that he also used the word Glacial. You can view the image, and get something out of it and you can also investigate the image, there is so much beneath the surface.