Kenny Berger
This project, entitled "Wall Memories", takes as its generalized object of inquiry the historical moment of 1989 relative to the twin problematics of historical memory and temporality. The central term through which inquiry is developed is the fall of the Berlin Wall, conceived in this context as the emblematic instance of the end of the Cold War. Set against the Wall, as a structural second term, is the story of a 1989 car-bombing at a Bronx high school, presented within the project as an autobiographic anecdote. This "car incident", in turn, is positioned as a hinge between the fall of the Wall, with which it is linked chronologically, and the film/novel "Crash", with which it has a loosely associative connection. It is the aim of this project, then, to put these narrative elements into play within the expanded field of a predominantly spatial practice. In so doing, the project proposes to call attention to the insistence of time as it passes, and, as such, to consider how the conditions through which we return to history, whether "public" or "private", are never unconsciously unmediated nor fully our own. This statement is taken from the catalogue for "EAST International", 2001, Norwich Gallery, Norwich School of Art and Design, Norwich, England. Kenny Berger New York |
