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BETTINA CARL
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A LA RECHERCHE 2000 - 2002 introduction 1 2 3 4 5

A LA RECHERCHE, installation 2000-2002 please scroll down

The installation A LA RECHERCHE departs from two large photographs; it works,

however, with traditional conventions of perceiving landscape painting, precisely

with the suggestive power of vast horizons. Thus the illusions predominate, while

the image itself insists on disillusioning the viewer.

Two samples of the GDR-product "Bastelunterlage" (22 x 31 cm of recycled plastic

designed as a pad for children's handicrafts) were reproduced and blewn up. The

enlargement renders the textured surface of the plastic objects even more visible,

nevertheless, these pictures immediately pass as photographs of landscape paintings.

They evoke the very concept of the picturesque bourgeois landscape, i.e. of (painted)

'nature' as the unearthly space where the irrational, the soul itself may be preserved.

As an installation, A LA RECHERCHE transfers this questioning of receptional

conventions on to various levels of images: Drawings, copies, photos of landscapes

and furniture are mingled with fragments of narrative by the artist and with quotes

from an essay by Herbert Marcuse, "Über den affirmativen Charakter der Kultur"

("On the affirmative character of culture" 1937).

part of the installation at Berlin University of the Arts, February 2001
collages, drawings, texts, photographss, photo-copies, ca. 200 x 550 cm

BETTINA CARL	HOME	>> deutsch


A LA RECHERCHE 2000 - 2002	introduction 1 2 3 4 5



A LA RECHERCHE, installation 2000-2002	please scroll down

The installation A LA RECHERCHE departs from two large photographs; it works, however, with traditional conventions of perceiving landscape painting, precisely with the suggestive power of vast horizons. Thus the illusions predominate, while the image itself insists on disillusioning the viewer. Two samples of the GDR-product "Bastelunterlage" (22 x 31 cm of recycled plastic designed as a pad for children's handicrafts) were reproduced and blewn up. The enlargement renders the textured surface of the plastic objects even more visible, nevertheless, these pictures immediately pass as photographs of landscape paintings. They evoke the very concept of the picturesque bourgeois landscape, i.e. of (painted) 'nature' as the unearthly space where the irrational, the soul itself may be preserved. As an installation, A LA RECHERCHE transfers this questioning of receptional conventions on to various levels of images: Drawings, copies, photos of landscapes and furniture are mingled with fragments of narrative by the artist and with quotes from an essay by Herbert Marcuse, "Über den affirmativen Charakter der Kultur" ("On the affirmative character of culture" 1937).


part of the installation at Berlin University of the Arts, February 2001 collages, drawings, texts, photographss, photo-copies, ca. 200 x 550 cm