Montes Sovietici text engl

BETTINA CARL
HOME >> deutsch

MONTES SOVIETICI 2001 - 2004 introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

MONTES SOVIETICI, installation: drawings, copies, inkjet prints, objects

" ...The Montes Sovietici received their name after LUNIK 3 produced the first photographs

of the far side of the moon in 1959. For the following three decades, the mountains were

identified on maps of the moon. However, with the start of the 1990s not only did the name

become obsolete, but also the entire mountain range disappeared from new encyclopedias

without a trace.

To whom it may concern is written on the backpack of an astronaut who is about to drift out

of one of Bettina Carl's drawings and off into space. As an element of pompousness, naivete

is a central motif in MONTES SOVIETICI. A simple visual language is an appropriate artistic

means of confronting this view of the world.

The installation MONTES SOVIETICI combines drawings, objects and documentary material

from the history of aeronautics. Blurring the difference between copy, fake and artifact, the

artist generates new contexts and creates fresh meanings with these images. Bettina Carl

plays with the mechanisms of producing reality, the strange and arresting pictures that

introduced earthlings to the space age. The propagandistic intentions of this imagery are

revealed along with underlying elements of ideological traditions of the occident. ..."

from: Dorothea El Mostaqui "To Whom It May Concern",
in Bettina Carl: MONTES SOVIETICI, catalogue, Berlin: 2003

pleasew scroll down

top: depiction of the moon's far side from Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968
bottom: artist's own denomination (on a map of the moon from 1932)

BETTINA CARL	HOME	>> deutsch


MONTES SOVIETICI 2001 - 2004	introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7



MONTES SOVIETICI, installation: drawings, copies, inkjet prints, objects


" ...The Montes Sovietici received their name after LUNIK 3 produced the first photographs of the far side of the moon in 1959. For the following three decades, the mountains were identified on maps of the moon. However, with the start of the 1990s not only did the name become obsolete, but also the entire mountain range disappeared from new encyclopedias without a trace. To whom it may concern is written on the backpack of an astronaut who is about to drift out of one of Bettina Carl's drawings and off into space. As an element of pompousness, naivete is a central motif in MONTES SOVIETICI. A simple visual language is an appropriate artistic means of confronting this view of the world. The installation MONTES SOVIETICI combines drawings, objects and documentary material from the history of aeronautics. Blurring the difference between copy, fake and artifact, the artist generates new contexts and creates fresh meanings with these images. Bettina Carl plays with the mechanisms of producing reality, the strange and arresting pictures that introduced earthlings to the space age. The propagandistic intentions of this imagery are revealed along with underlying elements of ideological traditions of the occident. ..."
from: Dorothea El Mostaqui "To Whom It May Concern", in Bettina Carl: MONTES SOVIETICI, catalogue, Berlin: 2003


pleasew scroll down

top: depiction of the moon's far side from Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968 bottom: artist's own denomination (on a map of the moon from 1932)