Flower, video projection on painting
Shahram Entekhabi 2005
paint on canvas, 210 x 300 cm (painting detail)
Prologue: We see the image of a man, standing in front of the wall of a house. To the left of him it is possible to make out part of a barred basement window. The man wears a dark suit and a light shirt, and he is carefully shaven. But the trouser-legs of the suit are a little too short for the wearer’s body. The man is holding a light blue suitcase in his left hand, and he extends his right - holding a blossoming red rose - towards the viewers. His expression is serious and reserved.
On the one hand, in Shahram Entekhabi’s video work “Flower” (2004) this image is a painting measuring 210 x 300 cm, but it is also a projection surface in various senses of the expression. In formal terms, a street scene with passers-by walking past is projected onto the background of the painted picture; onto the wall of the house. The video projection sets the painting alight. This is accompanied by a valuation of content, for the painted figure cannot be seen on the video image and thus attains a different materiality within the overall impression. It neither fits into the radiant effect of the painting, nor is it integrated into the stream of passing people. The ultimate impression is that the figure of the man is simultaneously present and absent. Particular attention is drawn to the figure as a consequence of this state of intermediacy with respect to media.
My cultural background means that I interpret the painted figure as the image of a guest-worker, since the man’s clothing awakens this association in Germany. As a result of the visual attributes of rose and suitcase, as well as his isolation within the pictorial context, it is possible to see a polite, but uprooted guest-worker in this image. Even though this terminology has been replaced by another today, the discourse of the guest-worker seems important to me, since it links the man and his role to a specific historical period in Germany. Between 1955 and 1973, millions of workers in countries including Italy, Turkey, Greece or Portugal were hired for factory work in Germany. Industrialisation and the ‘German economic miracle’ would have been unthinkable without guest-workers. But at that time, their migration was understood as temporary – only for the purpose of work. Initially, the men came to Germany to earn money without their families, visiting their home countries as often as they could.
Today, when rationalisation means that there is less and less industrialised factory work in Germany – either due to technological developments or to the emigration of production locations and a steady decrease in commissions – and a negative trend may be observed on the labour market, there are fewer and fewer guest workers, but still many migrants. The term “guest-worker” is also disappearing in our everyday, politically correct use of language. The correct, pithy reference today – in face of socio-political processes such as the uniting of families and naturalisation – is to Germans of Turkish or Italian origin.
Prolog: Wir sehen das Bild eines Mannes, der vor
einer Häuserwand steht. Links von ihm ist ein Teil eines vergitterten
Souterrain-Fensters zu sehen. Der Mann trägt einen dunklen Anzug,
ein helles Hemd und ist sorgfältig rasiert. Die Hosenbeine des Anzuges
sind jedoch ein wenig zu kurz für den Körper des Trägers.
In der linken Hand hält der Mann einen hellblauen Koffer, und mit
der rechten Hand streckt er eine rote aufgeblühte Rose den BetrachterInnen
entgegen. Seine Mimik ist ernst und zurückhaltend.
In Shahram Entekhabis Videoarbeit "Flower" (2004) ist dieses Bild einerseits eine 210 x 300 cm große Malerei und andererseits eine Projektionsfläche im mehrdeutigen Sinne. Formal gesehen wird auf das gemalte Bild dessen Hintergrund, die Häuserwand, als eine Straßenszene mit vorbeilaufenden Passanten projiziert. Die Malerei beginnt durch die Videoprojektion zu leuchten. Damit geht eine inhaltliche Wertung einher, denn die gemalte Figur ist nicht auf dem Videobild zu sehen und bekommt dadurch im Gesamteindruck eine andere Materialität. Sie passt weder in die leuchtende Wirkung der Malerei noch gliedert sie sich in die vorbeigehenden Menschen ein. Die Figur des Mannes ist dadurch anwesend und abwesend zugleich. Aufgrund dieses medialen Dazwischen wird ein besonderes Augenmerk auf die Figur gelegt. Mit meinem kulturellen Hintergrund interpretiere ich die gemalte Figur als Bild eines Gastarbeiters, da die Bekleidung des Mannes in Deutschland diese Assoziation hervorruft. (...)
Auszug aus einem Text von Doris Berger
Exhibition View
Urban Creatures — Pori Art Museum, Pori, Finland
