European performance Dream
Just got back from a festival performance in 2010 in Warsaw EPAF Ujazdowski Castle, where at night in the sweat produced relationship with what is done there (with the help of Pauline and Tom Kemp Majerski), but here again performance in Lublin. And it is at its best. Nigel Rolfe was a special guest in Warsaw, two days later presented in the Gallery of Labyrinth performance. I managed to recover slightly after Warsaw's carousel and next time I devoured poetic world of performance art. Nigel Rolfe two actions in spite of similar design (objects, video, audio) are completely different and significantly differed from what the artist was doing before, such as the Performance Platform . Yesterday she had a remarkable magic, perhaps because of the person of the artist, may well have arranged the space (and tightly filled with people, making it fit the theme, as discussed below).
What's the most moving view of Majdanek? What a visual trace of the Holocaust is there the most current? It has always seemed to me that the blue spots on the walls of the gas chambers, Zyklon B, which wgryzł the walls and created the scenic designs on them. On the video projection in the performance by Nigel Rolfe was visible a small room with the door closed. About what is this place, spoke barely visible dark stains on the walls. Irish artist reaches for the Prussian Blue aware of its references in this place, in the city where the former German camp concentration. At the same time accompanied by the conviction that what the artist operates only detail removed from reality, a pigment of intense color. Not juggling symbols not wallows in martyrdom, and avoids cheap sentimentality. Its role is to create meaningful images.
Performance took place in the lower part of the room in the Gallery of Labyrinth. He stood at a table covered with white cloth, was surrounded by several items. Behind him was projected with a static image of said interior gas chamber. She was accompanied by sound. This was the original recording and joyous toting, battle songs sung by Hitler for Hitler. It reminded of Hitler's dream of a Europe united in the great spirit of the fascist. Also showed how the poetry was harnessed in the service of ideology, as in the memorable song Tomorrow Belongs To Me Cabaret of . To this day, as you listen to the Nazi songs they overwhelm you with their beauty. It is paradoxical beauty collides with the reality of ghostly empty the gas chambers.
Prussian blue is the color of toxic and its beauty is deceptive. He talked about this in a very poetic way. He poured water on the white wall, thin stróżki poured on the floor. He took the gold stuck a funnel, poured a teaspoon of pigment, he approached the wall and blew. Blue splash is settled on the wet stróżkach, delicate white dust covered the surface. Rolfe repeated this movement several times. Delicate traces of air created by wydmuchiwanemu referred to the visible traces on the projection of the deadly gas that wżarły the walls. However, they were something much more ephemeral, like a distant echo of a difficult history, which forms a pretty pattern on the wall like a photograph of Jan Saudek. Artist put on the wall metal container, poured a flammable substance to it and lit it. Strong flame lit the dark, acrid smoke hung in the air and made the small space of a gallery packed with people even shrunk. She began to resemble that which was displayed on the video. Gray smoke darkened the picture on the wall. Interestingly, the manipulation of substances and the space was not like the theater was something experienced at a given time, work on the senses, meant that sterile place was suddenly something tight, disturbing.
Another important element during the performance by Nigel Rolfe gold is compressed a fist - a symbol of decadence, power, arrogance and corruption. Is associated with vanity, greed, desire for recognition. Gold fist in a way the icon of our times. He displayed a picture of the golden fists in the first room of the labyrinth. In the room next to the thought process of its creation - to his palm naklejał gold flakes. Delicate, elusive material melting the hand has ceased to be fragile, has changed into something monumental and powerful. To paraphrase the words of the song Brand Grechuta, the hand slowly deform the Squeeze your fist.
All items in the performance by Nigel Rolfe formed themselves into a coherent composition, the importance of dopowiadały, whispered, stemmed from one another, referring to a passage in our common history, which turned up to the present. Gold and blue color mean points of the story. Are its projections. Performance Artist operates only images - and even a smaller component of the image - color. Drawing seems to be here the beginning and end of the cohesive creative process during the performance - the artist comes from the drawing, which forms the basis of imaginary images - and the figure is over.
remains of the operation was a blue dust on the wall, dispersed pigment on the table and the smell of smoke in the air.
photographs courtesy photo gallery Labyrinth
Diana Kołczewska
