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Biennale Venice 2015 The Biennale of Venice 2015 is inspired by a work of the artist Paul Klee, titled 'Angelus Novus' (1920). This New Angel became famous through the words given to it by the Jewish-German philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892-1940). He bought the work in 1920 and guarded it as an iconic 'angel of history' on his ways to escape from the German dictatorial powers. Walter commited suicide in 1940 and ever since his angel is guarded in the Israel Museum of Jerusalem. This is how Walter Benjamin describes the work: A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. Walter Benjamin (1940) Now that we are in the first flow of a new age with its financial and social problems, there might be some coherence in the history that is being made right now. Let's contemplate the Angelus Novus like Walter Benjamin did and try to embrace this powerless angel with some positive human spirit and responsibility. Angel Eyes In 2013 I painted my own angel, staring straight in your eyes whenever you look at it. She is composed of several human figures and holds an empty - not white - flag towards earth. Her wings point out to the sky but they are made of 'down to earth' feet. One of her feet is a hand which tries to catch attention to the flag, out-reaching for a response. My angel seems to look for an answer to a question that was never yet posed. It's up to the voyeur to fill the empty space... |