Shimon Attie
1991
Untitled
[The Writing on the Wall]

Chromogenic print, on Kodak Professional paper
47 x 60 cm (56 x 68.5 cm)
 
Bassenge Photography Auctions
5 December 2018, Photography, Auction: 112, Lot: 4104
 
The renowned visual artist Shimon Attie's work spans photography, video installation and public projects. Describing his "The Writing on the Wall" project, which this image is from, the artist stated: "… I slide projected portions of pre-world war II photographs of Jewish street life in Berlin onto the same or nearby addresses where the photos were originally taken 60 years earlier. By using slide projection on location, fragments of the past were thus introduced into the visual field of the present. Thus parts of long destroyed Jewish community life were visually simulated, momentarily recreated. The projections were visible to street traffic, neighborhood residents, and passersby. As much of my art practice is a marriage between photography and installation art, during the course of the installations, I photographed the projections. The "Writing on the Wall" project was realized in one of Berlin's former Jewish quarters, the Scheunenviertel, located in the Eastern part of the city, close to the Alexanderplatz". Attie's work has been shown at MoMA, NY, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.
 
Lit.: Shimon Attie. Finstere Medine. Projektionen im Scheunenviertel. A Work in Progress. Berlin1992, ill. unpaginated. The Writing on the Wall: Projections in Berlin's Jewish Quarter. Shimon Attie - Photographs and Installations, Heidelberg 1993.
 
LL/85338