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Historical sensation
‘Cityscape Rome’ by Irene Janze and St. Petersburg’s ‘Metro Series’ paintings and video by Kerim Ragimov
Is it possible to feel history? Yes, was the definite answer of the most renowned professor in cultural history of the Netherlands Johan Huizinga (1872-1945). Huizinga invented the term ‘historical sensation’ for this experience. But what did he mean? And could artists shine a light on this? In museums we can see numerous depictions of historical battles, abdications, revolutions. Film, photography, video and digital media make it possible to store history, and to look back at it. But Huizinga meant something different by ‘historical sensation’: a highly personal, mysterious, overwhelming, ecstatic feeling of connection with time past. It can happen to anyone unexpectedly, casually even, evoked by the shadow of a building or by a crack in the asphalt showing the old cobbles beneath. We might come close to this sensation when looking at paintings, videos and videostills of Russian artist Kerim Ragimov (1970) and drawings of Dutch artist Irene Janze (1956). In the works shown at the Poterna exhibition hall Ragimov and Janze each focus on the experience of public space in cities that have grown into living monuments: St. Petersburg and Rome.
Kerim Ragimov: Metro Series
For more than a decade Kerim Ragimov has painted all of Piter’s metro stations, these great architectural signs of conquest over the Neva swamp. Ragimov took photographs and subsequently made a painting of each Metro Station. The series, started in 1993, up till now comprises of 50 paintings. As such this series already is a valuable historical document of St. Petersburg’s architectural history. But there is more to it: Ragimov plays brilliantly with photo-realism. We seem to be in the present time. But we could be in past time. ‘Frunzenskaja’ reminds one of a 1950’s Edward Hopper painting, ‘Lomonosovskaja’ brings the spectator into a 1960’s atmosphere of Soviet stagnation. Looking at ‘Gorgovskaja’ it seems we’re in the midst of a computer game. These wonderful paintings let us float through time. Next to a selection of his Metro paintings Ragimov presents new videos and videostills of metro passengers. They seem to move absentmindedly, their presence is irrelevant to the unmovable, stern metro buildings. Passengers may come and go, nothing will change. Ragimov has captured a mysterious inertia of time.
Irene Janze: Cityscape Rome
In her large drawing ‘Cityscape Rome’ Irene Janze blends human history with geological history. Janze brings us to one day in the history of the Eternal City of Rome: the 7th of April 2005, the day of the funeral of Pope John Paul II. We don’t see the funeral itself, we zoom in on its human ‘left-overs’ and even on Rome’s geological sediments. ‘Cityscape Rome’ is a complex storyboard, lusciously colored and tenderly drawn on cartographic chalk paper. From a satellite’s perspective we zoom in on Rome, the meandering Tiber river, the architecture, streets, cobbles and left-overs of the funeral’s media event: papal souvenirs and the rubbish left by the pelgrims in huge piles on the streets. And further the ‘storyboard’ goes, zooming in on what is beneath the streets of Rome: layers of tuff, the volcanic detritus on which Rome has been built. And further we go back into geological time, through a cartography of Italy’s sediments.and soil. Standing before ‘Cityscape Rome’ one might be overcome by a feeling of reverence towards the way human history is caught up by the geological history of our planet.
Erik Hagoort
curator
The exhibition of Kerim Ragimov and Irene Janze forms part of the Dutch-Russian project titled ‘Inertia. Ystoichevost b isskystve’, held at the Freud’s Dreams Museum in St. Petersburg, 24 September - 22 October 2006.
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2012 • [ìàé]
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