Art Metropole

#09676

An Aggregation of Adversary

Artist

Marius Engh

Date

2011

Publisher

Torpedo Press

Format

Artists' Books

Details

Softcover

ISBN

978-82-93104-04-9

Size

15 × 20 × 0.5 cm

Length

87 

Description

Texts by Oscar Tuazon and Stefania Palumbo

The photographic series Lead, Follow or Get the Hell Out of the Way and the sculptural works in An Aggregation of Adversary focuses on fragments of a history charged with an almost excessive emotive impact. Engh’s interest focuses precisely on the capacity that this place has had to accumulate historical meaning through the various episodes directly involved in its creation.

Teufelsberg (Devil’s Hill) is an artificial mound standing on what was supposed to be the flagship project of Third Reich architect, Albert Speer, for a grandiose, new Berlin Technical University, the foundation stone for which was laid by Adolf Hitler in 1937. Only one faculty of the entire complex was ever developed and, at the end of the Second World War, various attempts were made to demolish it. According to Speer’s theory of the «value of ruins», had it been destroyed, it would have retained its dignity as a monumental construction, leaving behind it an indelible mark of its own greatness. Instead, it was decided to bury it with the remains of more than 80,000 buildings bombed by the Allies in Berlin, thereby creating the highest point in the city. As if this were not enough, during the years of the Cold War, The United States decided to locate the National Security Agency listening station on the Devil’s Hill. Over the years, it stood as the diametric opposite of French anthropologist, Marc Augé’s concept of non-place, its state of abandon suggested various new uses, from a hotel complex to a meditation centre. According to Marius Engh, such a concentration of new uses brings the very concept of ruin into question.

Based on excerpts from the text Devils, Werewolves and Other Myths by Stefania Palumbo.

At the heart of Engh’s practice is an interest in the polymorph – the capacity of an object to take on different identities and functions depending on its context.

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