Book and exhibition catalog
Publisher: Ujazdowski Contemporary Art Center, Warsaw, Poland 2007
Writers: Lukasz Galecki, Pia Lindman, Nico Israel, Eva Scharrer, and Christoph Tannert
Editors: Nuit Banai and Pia Lindman
Project Design/Layout: Marianna Dobkowska and Krzysztof Bielecki
Images: Jennifer Chia, Anastasija Kudra, and Pia Lindman
Distribution: Distributed Art Publishers, New York
ISBN: 83-85142-54-1
When completing my videos “Waterline” and “Viewing Platform” in residency at the World Trade Center in New York in 2002, my focus was on the immediate traumatic and historical events of 9/11 I myself was part of. Four years later, after having made the river video “Spree” in Berlin and arriving in Warsaw in May 2006, I realized I was working on a larger series. Since his State of the Union Address of the year 2002, President George W. Bush has urged his fellow Americans and the world to combat the “Axis of Evil”. While I do not support any aspect of his statement, I think the notion of a historical axis can sometimes be a productive approach. I had just traveled an axis of violence from New York, via Berlin, and finally to Warsaw. This is an axis of historical consequences expressed by architectural removals.
I present this catalog, “Three Cities, Rivers and Monuments”, as an unusual guidebook to each of the three cities in this axis of architectural removals. I have invited one writer from each city to write about experiences concerning their own city, personal or historical. As you open the catalog, you will find three sections, one for each city. Each section starts with a major language spoken in the city, English for New York, German for Berlin, and Polish for Warsaw. Browse further and the opaqueness fades slightly as translations follow and stills from the videos invite you to consider some unfamiliar viewpoints of these cities.
For more information, see project description on this website in "Recent Projects" of "Three Cities, Rivers, Monuments".