The Scent of the Fading Alpine Rose and | ||||||||
other Essences in the Poetic Labyrinth | Annelie Pohlen | ||||||||
terms: | Theseus puts an end to man's powerlessness in the labyrinth by using a trick, a reason for the myth to become a metaphor of the classical principle of order and cognition; of a rationality that demonstrates its superiority, even in chaos. All that remains of the mythical image is the fluctuation between promising corridors and unexpected dead-ends, while faith has now been lost in the meaning of the entrance and exit – the distinction which enabled Theseus to gain power over reality using a single thread. Martin Walde keeps winding up the thread, knotting it into ever new constellations. There is no significance in either its beginning or its end, but in its knots and the stretches between them; in continually unfolding projections of realitv somewhere between the banality of standardising definitions and the longing for a sparkling existence amidst the "wealth of differentiation and heterogeneity... It is difficult to communicate this world when our opposite... is not in a position to relish it." (1) |
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The Scent of the Fading Alpine Rose | ||||||||
Enactments | ||||||||
Worm Complex | ||||||||
The Invisible Line | ||||||||
Tie or Untie | ||||||||
NOFF #1 | ||||||||
NOFF #2 | ||||||||
NOFF #3 | ||||||||
NOFF #4 | ||||||||
Can you give me something? | ||||||||
The Thin Red Line | The deconstruction of rational orders is rooted in Romantic poetry. Its
close linking – like Walde's – of poetic and scientific digressions implies
the 'logic' of non-linear symbols and words, the revitalisation of images
from curiosity cabinets, which energy can be teased from physical matter
as no more than an echo or a scent. The rejection of control "so as to distort nothing" (2), leads both to a stimulating and disturbingly vagabonding investigation into multiple, controversial possibilities for a perception of reality and art beyond known definitions. Thus Walde, using seductive and ironic turns to liberate the 'blue flower' from its ideological exploitation by the 1968 generation (3), orchestrates the superiority of obsession over the banal promises of the everyday consumer world in The Scent of the Fading Alpine Rose. A flashing green light invites the visitors, one by one, into a small pavilion; distributed on the floor are around one hundred small bottles filled with pink-violet liquid. A distant voice tells of the grandfather's obsessive desire for the scent of a fading alpine rose. In order to participate in the long search for fulfilment, the key for each visitor is to find the one bottle among so many filled with the artificially produced scent. It is left open whether the green light flashes invitingly or the red light not only signals the presence of a person in the pavilion, but also warns of potential disappointments. The language of the performance is unfamiliar to the speaker. The language of everyday advertising mutates into an homage to the speechlessness of great visions with the polyphone echo of poetically orchestrated signs, forms and 'things' that the artist has made so that they "learn to walk" (4). |
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Hallucigenia | ||||||||
Green Gel | ||||||||
Handmates | ||||||||
Woobies | ||||||||
The Tea-Set | ||||||||
Loosing Control | ||||||||
Melting Compactor | (1)Martin Walde, in an e-mail during the preparaion of this text. (2)ibid. (3)In opposition to the rigid, even nationalist interpretive paradigms commonly applied by German scholars, "Dye the blue flower red" was a slogan coined in Berlin during the student movement in 1968. (4)Martin Walde in conversation with Jens Asthoff in the catalogue: Martin Walde, Städtische Galerie, Nordhorn, 2004, p. 79. |
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Clips of Slips | ||||||||
Rolling Worm | ||||||||
The Rain has a Pleasant Temperature | ||||||||
authors: | ||||||||
Annelie Pohlen | ||||||||
further auhtors in this text: | ||||||||
Peter Weiermair | ||||||||
Stephen J. Gould | (continued on next page) |