In Vlahos’ work, all those layers of meaning are evoked, but not successively as in a text, but simultaneously, in paralysed anticipation of the flash of the blast. It is a sudden shock, which freezes time, and thus also elucidates the other materials compiled within the work, such as archival materials and pictures. The work expresses this unique historical moment in a peculiar way not, as Walter Benjamin once wrote – focussed on the way things really were, but presented through the lens of a specific moment of danger. For Benjamin, grasping a memory which flashes up in a moment of danger means to actualise this memory in the present instead of using the usual taxidermic and historicist approach towards things past. It means to expose its contemporary importance instead of the dead weight of a hegemonic construction of history. —Hito Steyerl
Book design for the artist Vangelis Vlahos, on the occasion of the 27th Biennial of Sao Paulo in Brazil. It contains photographs from six artist’s projects: Buildings that proclaim a nation’s identity to the world should not be missunderstood (2003), Brady Kiesling archive with three scale models of the U.S. Embassy of Athens (2003), Three scale models of the U.S. Embassy of Athens (in half) (2004), Buildings like texts are socially constructed (2004), Athens tower (2004) and New markets require new structures (2005).
Essays about the work by Magali Arriola, Hito Steyerl and Despina Zefkili.
