prefer to put it, a distance that allows for more to emerge than simply "criticism of mass media
culture". Rather he engages the power of art to engage perception, emotion and the longing for a transcendent truth and posses the question, if we should really abondon that power or simply negate or deny that longing or that power of art. With this he runs counter to the liberal-democrati assumption that all such recognition is inherently totalitarian. This is the "agent provocateur" element of his work. (Not dissimilar to claims of people like Slavoj Zizek, who states that the prohibition of politica representation of the masses in fact destroys the possibility of mass politics.)
What is most interesting to me in Dennis's work, however - and interesting for BERLIN NOIR- is none of the above aspects, though they are important. What is most interesting to me is that he operates "post partem" or "post rupturam". What he points towards with enaging 16th century apocalyptic printing or 1930s monumental architecture is the utter impossibility of "history", of simply telling a tale of continuation, where one adds period to period and receives a "Bildungsroman", an educational novel of european
culture or even the human race. There is a mourning mood in his work,becaus the "Zivilisationsbruch", the utter break through and after Nationa Sociailism is irreversible. Interestingly, with this he seems to acknowledge something on a radical, even emotional level, that most of those who would criticize his imagery will not be able to acknowledge: That we are lost in a time "after", that there is no way to restore "culture", that one cannot simply return to history or to art history and save "what was good". There is a readical, apocalyptic break and IT HAS ALLREADY HAPPENED. I am no always sure that he himself clearly understands this power of his work. It has clear romantic heritages, except that the wastelands it portraits are totally 20th century So the most powerful element of his work is not: oh, lets play provocative and show old fashioned or nazi iconography. It is that by showing this iconograpy he says: this is the world you live in. And he does this not with a typical art world ironic stance, but with an almost naive will to return to art and its power "despite it all". Here he has, on that level than not without irony, yet another historical reference: the "art religion" discourse of the late victorian and emperial ages.
– Felix Ensslin |
