Masters of Ambiguity
English version below.
Masters of Ambiguity
The Memminger Kunsthalle introduces an English artist couple to the German public for the first time. Hendrik Heinze on Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson.
Some artists create things, says Nick Crowe. Others find them. And we are one of them. There is their video, which they are showing in Memmingen. Miami, Florida. Two eternal flames, filmed at night. One celebrates the friendship of the USA with the rest of America. The other, a few kilometres away, looks no different but is a memorial of irreconcilability - a reminder of the failed attempt to drive Castro out of Cuba.
Two flames whose juxtaposition says an incredible amount about absurdity and world politics. Or this other film, "The Opera" - a video dictionary of the US Army made unfamiliar by the artists.
Intelligent political art
It's a nasty film, Crowe says. Animated GIs teaching US soldiers interrogation questions, in Afghan, French, Chinese. Crowe calls it preparation for the third world war. And tells how long he and his partner spent dissecting the material and reassembling it into a commentary on US foreign policy. Crowe lives near Berlin, Rawlinson in Manchester.
Once a month, the two masters of ambiguity meet and tinker with their finds. Or carve a Chinese lucky Buddha out of English coal. Structural change, climate change and world change in a small statue - that's really intelligent political art.
Crowe & Rawlinson, "Follow our orders" - until mid-May at the MeWo Kunsthallle in Memmingen, right next to the train station.