In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
We go in circles in the dark and are consumed by fire
Abel Auer
Nir Hod
Antonio Martorell
Steve Schepens
René Spitzer
Anke Wenzel
April 4th - 26, 2008
Opening Reception: Friday April 4th, 6-9 p.m.
Gallery Walk: Saturday April 5th, noon
Artist Talk: Antonio Martorell, Saturday April 26 at 1 p.m.
This last exhibition at the 63 Wareham Street gallery space poetically explores the Latin palindrome ‘In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni’ or ‘We go in circles in the dark and are consumed by fire’. This literary puzzle often called “the devil’s verse” can be read left to right or right to left.
The title is borrowed from that of a 1978 Guy Debord film which was meant to be his last one. Some interesting contemporary artworks draw -consciously or subconsciously - from ‘something missing’ that refuses to be a mere nostalgia for the ideas developed by an obscure ‘last avant-garde’ in the late 60’s and 70’s. But far from echoing or recycling strategies the works gathered and produced for this show seem to explore and connect us with ideas that are very close to a personal, organizational, and perhaps collective transitional moment.
For the next year Space Other abandons its sessile exhibition space in Boston’s South End and proceeds to develop a series of exhibitions under the umbrella title ‘space other at other spaces’, which will take place in non-traditional exhibition spaces in Amsterdam, Berlin, New York, and San Juan during the remainder of 2008. During the fall of 2006 we participated in an exhibition where we took over an empty store space in a commercial district in Hamburg for a month. This is the nomadic model to follow. A self published book compiling information on the 21 exhibitions and the many artists presented in Boston during the last three years should come out early this fall.
But going back to the upcoming show, the works have to do or convey an energy that moves us to search like moths at night, which can be sort of a curse, or a blessing or sickness that drives us to get too close to the fire and burn. The tone is grave, a bit somber, a recognition of life as passage, a recognition of ends, a dealing with impending doom, a healing patchwork out of a sinister, transforming detritus, a needed ritual.
The conditions that do not allow us to stop, the temptation of a radical withdrawal into private life, the evaporation of accumulated wealth, rumors of recession, deflation, stagflation, depression, a weak dollar, foreclosures, and an urge to get off are a common backdrop for the show.
To give all power to the imagination. What is more necessary but to remember why we need to be hard. Exploring an individual psychogeography by strolling aimlessly through different positions that have found resonance with a specific moment in time and space for a few who form a smooth fabric in a now possible urban landscape that is dispersed in many cities and countries and languages. A collective form of sociality that is threatened by surrounding inertia and lack of thought. (Recognize the power of the Empire and the need to engineer and nurture forms of resistance. Defend the emotionality of life in face of absolute control.) These are the loose associations that go behind it.
Overall, the exhibition aims to emphasize ideas of transformation and the eternal recurrence of life. For some of us reality is always changing, it is not a constant durable fiction. Thus, what is called for is a ‘revaluation of values’, a paying attention to the edge of the picture, ‘maintaining cheerfulness in the midst of a gloomy task’.
Albert Einstein once remarked that the important thing was not to understand, but simply attempt to communicate. Even if there is no way back to the Dionysian years of pure negation, and shit plugs are rapidly co-opted by an insatiable omnipresent market that reproduces, multiplies and cancels out every attempt to stage or try to burst the limits from within. To unavoidably take part but to at least throw a grain of sand into the engine that will accelerate the collapse of a foretold monstrosity of capital that is now morbidly obese.
‘In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni’ / ‘We go in circles in the dark and are consumed by fire’ includes different media: paintings, material constructions, a huge collage on a rug, drawings, a sculptural installation with french fries, and a series of video performances. The artists presented are: Abel Auer (bo. Munich 1974), Nir Hod (bo. Tel Aviv 1970), Antonio Martorell (bo. San Juan de Puerto Rico 1939), Steve Schepens (bo. Ghent 1979), René Spitzer (bo. Duesseldorf 1978), and Anke Wenzel (bo. Schwedt/Oder 1978).
Gamaliel R. Herrera
ingirumimusnocte.pdf