《失樂園─當代城市文明的凝視與寓意》藝評專文 Art Reviews

靜謐與不安－詹姆斯•卡斯貝爾的攝影 文／傑佛瑞．葛洛夫（國際策展人、尚凱利畫廊出版總監）

譯／沈怡寧

01-14

《毀壞的房屋－加薩走廊》 ：化創傷為記憶 文／恩斯特・范・艾爾芬(荷蘭萊登大學文學系教授)

譯／沈怡寧

15-24

Quiet and Disquiet in James Casebere’s Photographs Jeffery Grove 25-36

Destroyed House Gaza: Transforming Trauma into Memory Ernst van Alphen 37-46

靜謐與不安－詹姆斯•卡斯貝爾的攝影 文／傑佛瑞．葛洛夫（國際策展人、尚凱利畫廊出版總監）

譯／沈怡寧

詹姆斯．卡斯貝爾（James Casebere）以其在攝影領域的前衛創作聲名遠揚。他

屬於一群主要由美國藝術家組成的世代，在����年代開始透過攝影、電影、錄像、 行為表演，來探討日常圖像的真實性。羅蘭．巴特（Roland Barthes）及班雅明

（Walter Benjamin）等思想家的哲學表述、用來討論攝影的新興後現代批判性理

論、被間接影像（mediated image）餵養長大的第一代嬰兒潮的親身經歷，在在啟

發了卡斯貝爾和辛蒂．雪曼（Cindy Sherman） 、羅伯特．龍古（Robert Longo） 、 蘿瑞．西蒙斯（Laurie Simmons） 、理查德．普林斯（Richard Prince） 、麥特．穆 里肯（Matt Mullican） 、詹姆斯．威靈（James Welling） 、芭芭拉．克魯格（Barba-

ra Kruger）等諸多藝術家，使其對原創性與真確性的概念不遺餘力地深究。對於

「圖像世代」的藝術家群－卡斯貝爾及其同儕而言，已不再把「攝影是真相的再現」 視為信條。

過去四十年間，卡斯貝爾的創作持續投注在發展「建構式攝影」 ，這種獨特且越趨 複雜的語彙－將自製的建築結構模型打上富有戲劇張力的燈光效果，接著拍成攝 影作品。他根據建築、藝術史、電影等題材，用簡單的材料搭造桌子大小的模型，結

構上則總是去蕪存菁。多年來，順應他在各種美學和技術挑戰上的多方探索，其影 像內容亦擴而充之，精煉美純。藝術家表示： 「攝影能引起我的共鳴，因為它操弄我 們對周遭世界的感知，」 「 我想探討攝影如何作為一種用來說服、宣傳、建構歷史的 手段，去了解它如何創造、重建現實。」�

����年出生於密西根州蘭辛一個中產階級的小康家庭，卡斯貝爾的成長過程適逢 電視剛剛起勢，一步步攀上美國境內影像傳播媒介的龍頭地位，即後來所謂的電視

「黃金年代」 。卡斯貝爾在談到這股影響時說道：

我是第一代跟電視一起長大的藝術家……流行文化和風土建築對 我的影響也很大。我想作出能夠讓更多人接受的藝術，像電視和電 影那樣具有娛樂性、煽動性、又令人著迷。 �

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JAMES CASEBERE

卡斯貝爾創作初期建構並拍攝的景象，會讓人聯想到他成長過程的環境與氛圍， 但絕對不是他自己編構出來的情境，而比較像是參考����、��年代初期，電視播 放的情境喜劇和戲劇節目中線條簡約俐落的布景。這些早期作品著眼於用批判性

角度檢視居家空間，解析—時而刺穿—安逸的郊區生活含有的隱喻。卡斯貝爾的 早期作品－針對����年代中期所製作的模型都相當簡單，有時還帶點卡通感，用 粗略裁剪、拼裝的紙板擬仿室內空間，然後將平凡的物件擺在某個荒謬的位置。

《冰箱上的叉子》 （ Fork in the Refrigerator ，����年）便是一例：一支巨大

（現實中的尺寸）的叉子穿入紙板做成的冰箱。他在這個時期創作的影像，乍看之 下趣味橫生，往往投射出一股焦慮，或許是反映越南時期（譯註一）壟罩著無數美 國家庭的那股不斷升溫的惶然不安。

Fork in the Refrigerator , ���� gelatin silver print © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

在初期的攝影作品中，卡斯貝爾檢視當代生活中平庸的、常見的、居家的符號，用 近乎超現實的方式將之轉化，希冀在看似平凡的日常表象中找到某種不平凡。回

想創作這些圖像的動機時，他表示在那段時期「對特定的地點，或記錄在現實空 間發生的行為並沒有興趣。我對紀錄這件事壓根不感興趣。事實上，從哲學的角

度來說，我並不認同以寓言作為一種藝術表現手法的概念。」� 寓言（allegory）即

02

假託另外的故事或圖片來說理，其中又以政治或道德含義尤為常見。相反地，卡 斯貝爾請觀者靠自己的聯想或記憶拼湊出完整的訊息，閱讀構築其作品的脈絡 語境，而不是由他向觀眾下指導棋。

攝影家是卡斯貝爾最受肯定的身份，但他其實也是一位雕塑家、攝影指導、影片導 演，或者說，他是編導攝影的「作者」 （auteur） ，由他執導的畫面總流露出電影敘事

般的深層共鳴。實際上，卡斯貝爾的創作發展到��年代早期時，已經顯露較明顯的 電影特質，與電視的聯想變得相對次等。依舊用黑白底片拍攝的關係，讓他的影像

色調更豐飽滿；模型的製作更為謹慎、更銳利、結構更穩固，而打光方式也更為純 熟。此次展出的早期作品之一《店鋪前》 （ Storefront ，����年）堪稱該時期的代表 作，其所具有的結構性和功能性特質，持續形塑卡斯貝爾的建築影像。此作匠心別

具的構圖，嚴謹近乎古典；遑論邀請，卻也不至於讓人心生畏懼；但一個店面看不 到什麼歡迎光臨的設計，也著實罕見。如同卡斯貝爾所有其它攝影作品一般，這幕

無人的畫面呈現一個鬱鬱寡歡的空場，實在無從得知藝術家想像出的場域究竟是 遭棄置的空間，抑或只是離峰時段沒在使用：時間停留在未明狀態。沒有空間外部 的細節—用錙銖必較後的精簡語彙，來講述任何要被處理的神秘敘事。卡斯貝爾刻

意抹除場景中的元素，創造出的空間在喚起記憶與情感的同時，亦讓人久久難以 忘卻；油然而生的詭異氛圍，召來令人忐忑的情緒。

Storefront , ����

vintage gelatin silver print © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

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JAMES CASEBERE

觸目皆是的不在場，顯性敘事的迴避，至今仍是卡斯貝爾作品與眾不同的特質，他

所設想的情節可以被解讀為是對空間的精神剖繪或性格研究，而非複製特定場所 的結構成分。藝術家表示： 「用現實手法去表現既有的場所，」或去記錄任何東西，從 來都不是他創作的出發點， 「我對拍攝這個世界一向沒有什麼興趣……當初我開始 拍照的時候……我真正想做的，是創造一種關係的語言－是關於想法，不是事物。」�

他在��年代初期開始創作的一系列公共空間和機構場所的影像，堪稱其最出名的作

（ Prison Cell with Skylight ，����年） ，或是法庭、拘留室 品，例如《有天窗的牢房》

、醫院、監獄，這些作品乍看之下平舖直述，但真正探討的是支撐文化構成的遠大「理

念」 ，和強而有力的關鍵性議題。正是在這些複雜的作品中，觀者得以察悉卡斯貝爾 對社會秩序、社會正義，或他所稱的「社會控制機制－無論是在學校、醫院、救濟院、監 獄」�等議題的演變與關懷持久不變的關注。

Prison Cell with Skylight , ���� cibachrome print

© James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

04

Venice Ghetto , ���� gelatin silver print © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

卡斯貝爾憶及這些作品的緣起時說道： 「我開始分析不同的建築表現，透過不同 的影像，用不同的方式再現。」� 此系列中有許多件作品都是呈現這些機構的內部

空間，然而從此系列延伸出來的其它作品，反倒是以這些場所的正面和外部為題

材，例如本展中的《威尼斯猶太區》 （ Venice Ghetto ，����年） 。此作和探討拘留 和監禁的系列作品有直接的關聯。卡斯貝爾說道：

威尼斯猶太區的影像是關於……社會控制，是關於威尼斯林立的高

樓的起源。過去猶太人被迫只能住在威尼斯的幾座島嶼上，每天晚上 還要在規定的時間之前回到島上。因為不能往城市其他區域橫向擴 展，他們不得不將房子越蓋越高。這也是一種囚禁。�

這份對壓迫的社會體制的關注與關懷，展現在卡斯貝爾的諸多作品中，在某種程度

上，這和他曾經表示「空」是其概念核心的說法有所牴觸。儘管他選擇斷然地在其影 像中省略任何人類的痕跡，但作品實際表達出來的是－形構「人的條件」的身理和心 理空間並未在卡斯貝爾意欲探討的問題中缺席。就此而論，他的影像雖然不是實際

處所的再現，在某種意義上，仍企圖勾勒出人類在接觸文化時感受到的心理空間。卡 斯貝爾常針對一個看似平凡的形式不斷重複地鑽研，持續不停地喚起僅細微差別的

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JAMES CASEBERE

全新聯想 — 例如本展中因題材而互相環扣的三件作品 — 它們分別以不同方式表

現樓梯這個建築元素： 《樓梯間》 （ Stairwell ，����年－����年） 、 《綠色階梯 #�》

（ Green Staircase #� ，����年）、《轉角處》 （ Turning Hallway ，����年）

Stairwell , ����-����

gelatin silver print © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

Green Staircase #� , ����

Turning Hallway , ����

© James Casebere

© James Casebere

digital chromogenic print mounted to Plexiglas Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

digital chromogenic print mounted to Plexiglas Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

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《樓梯間》是這個類型學下最早（同時也是最近期）的作品之一。影像採鳥瞰式取

景，朝著看似無底的樓梯井向下望去，井身四邊擁擠的階梯層層往下，製造一種

暈眩感。從方形窗戶灑入的光線形成神秘的陰影，為愁喜難料、吉凶未卜的氛圍 定調。在一般大眾的想像裡，尤其是在電影的視覺發展史中，樓梯和台階都是常

見的題材，也是力道十足的譬喻。永無休止的吵鬧聲，數不盡的徒手之戰，殘暴的 射殺，各種必死無疑的墜落，都會以樓梯作為背景。恐怖片若是少了某個倒楣鬼 莫名其妙地決定走下漆黑的樓梯去察看下面傳來的怪聲音的一幕，就顯得不夠

到位。從《日落大道》到《波坦金戰艦》 ； 《慾望街車》乃至《洛基》和《鐵達尼號》 ，樓

梯的重要性屢屢可見，像個稱職的配角，象徵著逝去的魅力、無助的險境、脆弱的 慾望、勝利與愛，它通通包辦。卡斯貝爾的《樓梯間》也隱藏著滿滿的潛在意義，而

且，這幅樓梯井的畫面尤其和希區考克的電影《迷魂記》裡的一個場景，有極高的 相似度：由詹姆斯．史都華（James Stewart）所飾演，患有恐高症的史考提追著 飽受折磨的心儀對象瑪德琳／茱蒂時，必須克服眩暈才能趕上登上鐘樓的她，但 她終究還是悲劇性地從鐘樓墜落身亡。

Film Still from Vertigo

(Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)

����年的《綠色階梯 #�》或許沒有滿滿的預兆，但也不乏層層堆疊的意義—試圖

理解真實和幻覺空間的本質和此場景描繪的潛在意義之間的分裂，強拉出一股張 力，讓作品隨之顫動。此作完美佐證某位作家對卡斯貝爾的影像作品的描述：陰森 恐怖卻又吸引人， � 與它同屬����年開始進行的一系列創作中，卡斯貝爾讓它們都 07

JAMES CASEBERE

「淹了水」 。在����年柏林圍牆倒塌後，卡斯貝爾曾造訪該市，早在此時，便萌生這

個系列的創作概念。卡斯貝爾回憶當第一批「淹水」作品實際成像時，他是企圖「把

水當作一種策略，用它來象徵時間的流逝、被遺忘的記憶、和一種哀悼及失去的感 受。」� 他將相同的策略，也套入根據麻州安多佛的菲利普斯學院（Phillips Academy） ，和湯瑪斯．傑佛遜（Thomas Jefferson） （譯註二）在維吉尼亞州夏洛蒂鎮 的蒙蒂塞洛（Monticello）住所的美國殖民建築風格而發展出的攝影系列作品。蒙

蒂塞洛是新古典主義建築的聖地，處處可見傑佛遜的創意發明，然而，也曾有超過 ���個奴隸在這座種植園為傑佛遜務農。卡斯貝爾把蒙蒂塞洛、菲利普斯學院、和

在《綠色階梯#�》中延伸出的殖民建築都淹了水，似乎是想表達一個願望，祈求淨 化或「洗去」前人的罪，抑或是啟動一個衰敗的過程，瓦解他們建造的一磚一瓦。卡

萊布．史密斯（Caleb Smith）在評論這些「淹了水」的照片時表示「水在這裡究竟 是象徵壓抑的過去回來糾纏啟蒙之屋，抑或是一股未來腐朽毀滅的力量，實在難 以斷言。」��

整個����年代，卡斯貝爾以西班牙與土耳其的歷史建物為參照，編構昔日的建築，

創造出地點不詳、時間不明的內部空間。����年，在返回創作生涯初期探討的主要 題材後，卡斯貝爾把城郊美式建築訂為此階段的概念主軸。關於 《有房屋的景色 》

（ Landscape with Houses ）系列的創作動機，卡斯貝爾很清楚地表示，是受到次 貸危機的影響：這場從����年至����年間發生在美國全境的財務危機，讓許多持

有房貸的美國人所背負的債務遠高於他們的住房價值。 「溺水」 （underwater）一 詞經常被用來形容這個狀態。卡斯貝爾談到這些作品的起源時表示：

房貸危機刺激了我創作《有房屋的風景》系列的動機。我從����年開始研究紐 約北區的郊區和遠郊，思考如何利用它們當作一種創作題材，這是從我最初開

始創作後，第一次朝這個方向思考。重新回到給我創作靈感的家庭、後現代的

概念；那是羅伯．范裘利（Robert Venturi）在 其著作《建築中的複雜與矛盾》

（ Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture ）大力鼓吹的概念。那時 我正在重新閱讀這本書，是我����年代晚期從藝術學院畢業後的第一次。��

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卡斯貝爾提及過去開車沿著波啟浦夕市附近的塔康尼克公園大道，往返於紐約

上州的住家和工作室之間時，開始注意到，自從他住在郊區後，那些「中產階級住 宅」所歷經的變化是何等劇烈，都市擴張的觸角又是如何大張旗鼓地鑽入原是郊

區的地帶。在為《有房屋的景色》這套共計十幅的攝影作品進行前置準備階段的 那幾年，卡斯貝爾一步步擴展模型涵蓋的版圖，而製作這些新作需要顧及到的構

圖複雜性，和越來越多需要注意的細節，都是始料未及的。本展展出此系列中的 兩件攝影作品，其一為《有房屋的景色（達奇斯郡，紐約）#�》 （ Landscape with

，這是藝術家為此系列創作的 Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #� ，����年）

第一件。此作最能清楚表達卡斯貝爾對於他所描述的「在集合住宅區發現那些像是

用切餅乾麵團的模型蓋出來的千篇一律毫無創意的麥克豪宅（譯註三）大舉入侵， 讓地方品味意外的臨時大成功，徹底和疾馳失控的碳足跡攪混在一起」�� 的回應。

Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #� , ����

Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #� , ����

© James Casebere

© James Casebere

framed digital chromogenic print mounted to Dibond Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

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framed digital chromogenic print mounted to Dibond Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

JAMES CASEBERE

從表現力、多樣性、複雜度來說， 《有房屋的景色（達奇斯郡，紐約）#�》的「布景」 比起在此之前的許多模型，儼然更上一層樓，或許將之稱為「立體圖型」 （ diora-

ma）更為貼切。藝術家首次將其作品常見的精緻手工自製紙板結構體，結合模型 愛好者所用商業生產材料，例如鐵道模型迷常用的微型樹和人工草皮，創造出的

環境不僅真實度大增，規模也是氣勢十足。接下來的畫面是，卡斯貝爾從模型上

方拍攝後續的系列作品；改變既有元素的用途，做成新的模型；加入遊戲用的攀

爬架、地面游泳池、衛星天線，為社區的家庭成員健康設備升級；甚至為其中一幅 作品添上一抹天邊的彩虹。此系列映射出美國人所崇尚的美與好，而這股感受在

《有房屋的景色（達奇斯郡，紐約）#�》 （����年）達到顛峰。

那無疑是個高級社區，盤據前景的是一片兼具足球場和棒球場雙重功能的校園 操場，外圍堆有一些木頭—肯定是在為返校的營火晚會做準備。在遠處，可以看 到裝有太陽能板的住家，和製造能源的風力發電機。這幅郊區生活的美好寫照中

的一切，都是如此恰如其分的存在，儘管如此，正如卡斯貝爾大多數的作品，仍有 一股縈繞不去的感覺，即便不造成威脅，也會帶來不安。空—從藝術家其它攝影 作品中已經讓觀者極為熟悉的要角—在此作中的存在感似乎更為強大，個體的

缺席在這個本應是人口稠密的社區中顯得極不相稱；漆著繽紛色彩的房子竟也

平添幾分淒涼。色彩的運用方式，加上藝術家選擇誇大色彩的戲劇效果，使其成 為這段故事情節中的主角，讓這個系列著實不同凡響。

多數卡斯貝爾的前期作品都是以黑白、棕褐色調呈現，當有任何色彩出現時，像

是以蒙蒂塞洛和菲利普斯學院為題材的攝影作品，都是經過精巧的安排。然而， 卡斯貝爾讓特藝彩色（Technicolor） （譯註四）的洪流在《有房屋的景色》整組

系列中大解放，藉高度明亮飽和的畫質，點出作品隱含的比喻：這組模型和搭在 好萊塢外景場地的幻覺真實風格的場景布置，簡直別無二致，其程度更勝於卡斯 貝爾過去製作的其它模型。用這種方式解讀時，這些影像完美象徵了許多人被承

諾或願意買帳的理想化大夢 — 擁房自住的美國夢，一個富足圓滿的未來—只是 這個擔保對千千萬萬的平民百姓來說，最終不過是一場春秋大夢。

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雖然《有房屋的景色》系列中色彩歡愉的影像可能潛伏著某種更灰黑的隱喻，但

卡斯貝爾近年來越發鮮明的攝影創作卻非如此。在兩組奪人目光的全新系列中， 卡斯貝爾運用燦爛耀眼的色調，創作出的建物內部和獨立式結構的絕美畫面，

《淺池》 （ Shallow Pool，����年）為其中一例。此作是由以「情感建築」理論為主

軸 的 攝 影 系 列 中 的 一 件。 「 情 感 建 築 」指 的 是 由 墨 西 哥 建 築 師 路 易 斯．巴 拉 岡

（Luis Barragán）和藝術家馬薩斯．戈埃里茲（Mathias Goéritz）提出的現代

主義建築風格，他們對現代主義冰冷的功能取向深感灰心，轉而擁抱空間、色彩、

燈光，藉此創造出能觸發溫度或使人靜觀、反思的結構。卡斯貝爾過去一向會以 別人設計的既有結構為創作的借鑑，這組以巴拉岡為發想的攝影也不例外。但近

幾年，他開始自己擔綱建築師的角色，從設計到建構，陸續製作出一些開放結構

（open structure） （譯註五），再拍成系列作品，如《黃澄澄的水上屋》 （ Bright

。 Yellow House on Water ，����年）

Shallow Pool , ����

framed archival pigment print mounted to Dibond © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

這系列的作品將公共／私人空間交錯混搭。依幾何原理設計的大型建物，用醒目的

色調呈現，顯得既具象，又抽象。這類具有庇護功能的開放甚至未完工的結構體— 海灘度假屋、池畔休憩亭、澡堂—藝術家稱其為「有榮譽感，而且堅韌、結構穩定的 構造。」�� 他是這樣描述的： 「它們有一股趣味的氛圍。似乎表現出人類堅毅不撓的

精神。這些物件彷彿是從水面下浮出來的，就好像從水裡來到陸地上生活的第一種

動物。」�� 既不是烏托邦，也非反烏托邦，這些影像意欲啟發對有恐懼相伴的純粹美 11

JAMES CASEBERE

感的欣賞與理解。在這些拔了錨、淹了水的亭子中，卡斯貝爾看到在全球暖化迎面而

來的今日，人類所展現出的獨創性。他承認這些影像或許體現對不明未來的畏懼，但

同時堅持我們「無法承擔絕望地舉手投降然後退場將帶來的後果。」�� 事實上，卡斯

貝爾認為這些結構體表達了韌性、適應力、獨創性、或許還有些許樂觀。它們所洩 露的感性面映出他曾表達過的信念：生命，偶然間， 「會有否極泰來的時候。」��

Bright Yellow House on Water , ����

framed archival pigment print mounted to Dibond © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

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�

Alexander Ho， 《解構結構：論詹姆斯．卡斯貝爾����年－����年作品集》 ， 《時代》雜誌LightBox，

�

Douglas Bohr ，《詹姆斯．卡斯貝爾訪談錄，蒙特婁當代藝術館》 ，����年，頁��。

＜https://time.com/�����/james-caseberes-works-����-����/＞ ［於����年��月��日瀏覽］ 。 �

奧奎．恩威佐（Okwui Enwezor）及詹姆斯．卡斯貝爾， 〈攝影與幻覺的歷史〉 ， 《詹姆斯．卡斯貝爾����年－����年作品集》 ，奧奎．恩

威佐編輯，����年，頁��－��。 � � � � � �

�� �� �� �� �� �� ��

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Helmke , Juliet， 《詹姆斯．卡斯貝爾新作，受路易斯．巴拉岡的建築啟發而作，現於尚凱利藝廊展出》 ，Blouin Art Info，����年�月�日。

《詹姆斯．卡斯貝爾����年－����年作品集》 ，頁��。. 同上註。

同上註，頁��。

〈自願終止懷疑〉 ， 《Art on Paper》雜誌，����年，一／二月刊，頁���。 《詹姆斯．卡斯貝爾����年－����年作品集》 ，頁��。

Caleb Smith， 〈換個光點〉，《James Casebere: Fugitive》 ，紐約，����年，頁��。 Bohnacker, Siobhan.，〈小盒子〉，《紐約客》 ，����年��月�日。 同上註。

摘自詹姆斯．卡斯貝爾與Adair Lentini的訪談，����年��月��日。 摘自詹姆斯．卡斯貝爾致筆者的電郵，����年��月�日。 同上註。

Miss Rosen， 〈家，詹姆斯〉 ， 《Upstate Diary》雜誌，no. �，頁��。

JAMES CASEBERE

譯註： �.越南時期：Vietnam era，美國退伍軍人事務部用來對越戰退伍軍人進行分類的名詞，泛指����年到����年這段期間。 �.湯瑪斯．傑佛遜：Thomas Jefferson（����年－����年） ，美國第三任總統（����年－����年） 。 �.麥克豪宅：McMansion，又譯為麥豪宅或偽豪宅。這個名詞的用法在美國始見於����年代，是媒體用以形容市郊住宅區那些佔 地龐大的低俗大宅，而這個新詞相信是結合了連鎖速食餐廳麥當勞的開頭「Mc（麥）」和「Mansion（宅邸）」 ，以諷刺這些住宅的素 質如同快餐般低廉。

�.特藝彩色：Technicolor，又稱特藝七彩。是一種用於拍攝彩色電影的技術，主要是利用彩色濾鏡、局部鏡子、三稜鏡，以及三卷黑 白底片，同時紀錄三原色光，並以呈現超現實色彩及有著飽和的色彩層次而聞名。

�.開放結構：open structure，建築對於外部環境的互動性開放，它與周圍環境的影響是雙向且互相的。在建築範疇，開放結構主要 是指建築與時間變化而產生的擴展與轉變有關。

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《毀壞的屋宅－加薩走廊》 ：化創傷為記憶 文／恩斯特・范・艾爾芬(荷蘭萊登大學文學系教授)

譯／沈怡寧

當人們在破壞房屋時，真正被毀掉的是什麼？首先，被夷平的便是「房屋」 （house） 一詞所指涉的建物（building） 。儘管今日住在帳篷或臨時性結構的人口日益增加， 而且房屋也可以由船體構成所謂的船屋，但是我們對「房屋」的第一個聯想，還是 人類用以安居並稱之為家（home）的建築結構，即屋宇、樓房、宅舍。然而「房屋」的 含義遠超過做為住家空間的建物；它也是「家族」的代名詞。我們提到奧倫治王朝

（House of Orange）時，並不會稱它為皇室的宮殿之一。這個名稱涵蓋完整的家 族譜系、歷代宗親，不單只是在世的家族成員；換句話說， 「房屋」同時指涉家族和 它的根，代表著宗譜世系的記憶。

在英語和荷蘭語這類語言中， 「房屋」一詞通常是用來做為某種比喻。只有在特殊 的脈絡和情況中，房屋會同時交織著「家族」和建築的雙重意義。最知名的例子是 艾德格．愛倫．坡（Edgar Allen Poe）所著的短篇小說《亞瑟家的沒落》 （ The Fall

of the House of Usher ） 。亞瑟家的病灶並不在於殘破，而是它的覆滅，意味著敘 事主軸不在建物，而是家族，即便宅第的崩塌確實具體勾勒出家道中落乃至滅門

絕戶的意象。然而，在阿拉伯語和希伯來語中，各自有一個名詞同時含括了這兩層

意義。阿拉伯語中的「bait」和希伯來語中的「bet」是分別指涉不同概念的諧音字；

換一種說法，就是它們是拼法和讀音相近的兩個字，但含義不同。在這些語言中， 房屋的破壞可以從兩個層面解釋：它是對住宅本身的破壞，也是對家族記憶的破 壞；兩者乃相生相成，因為家的實體構造和在此構造裡滋長的根基，本是同一物。

在 瑪 里 安・特 文（Marjan Teeuwen）近 年 的 創 作 計 畫 裡， 「 毀 壞 的 房 屋 」還 包

含 了 另 一 種 雙 重 語 義。這 些 計 畫 的 名 稱 是 根 據 房 子 所 在 地 點 而 定： 《毀 壞 的 屋

宅》 （ Destroyed House ，����、����年） ，《毀壞的屋宅－克拉斯諾亞爾斯克》

（ Destroyed House Krasnoyarsk，����年） ， 《毀壞的屋宅－皮特．蒙德里 安大街》 （ Destroyed House Piet Mondriaanstraat ，����－����年）， 15

Marjan Teeuwen

《毀壞的屋宅－布盧姆霍夫》 （Destroyed House Bloemhof ，����年） ， 《毀壞的 屋宅－北阿姆斯特丹》 （ Destroyed House Op Noord ，����年），《毀壞的屋宅

－萊登》 （ Destroyed House Leiden，����年） ，以及近期新作《毀壞的屋宅－加薩

走廊》 （ Destroyed House Gaza ，����年） ，這些計畫全都是對荒廢且即將被拆

除的房舍進行介入行為。它們或老舊或衰敗，再也沒有翻修的必要，注定走向被拆 除的命運。乍看之下，特文對這些舊屋危樓的介入行為，就像讓這些房舍的毀壞情

況更雪上加霜。她朝地板和牆壁開鑿，等於揮出致命的一擊。這麼一來，藝術家的 計畫並非創造的行為，而是破壞的行為；或者更確切地說，在她的計畫裡，破壞即 是創造的一種表現形式。但這其中另有玄機。

Destroyed House Krasnoyarsk � , ����

Inkjet print

© Marjan Teeuwen

特文將廢墟的殘垣碎瓦再利用，將它們堆積疊起，窗戶或其他開口處則用剩餘的

材料封填，並使用瓦礫、垃圾、二手廢料創作雕塑品。她在廢墟裡進行的介入行為， 有時包括隨機收集材料再加以組合；但有時也會依照材質和顏色，篩選所有再利 用的材料並予以分類。例如《檔案室》系列和幾件《毀壞的房屋》系列作品中的建築

雕塑，就是運用這種手法。再利用材料的揀選原則通常按照顏色區分，其中又以黑

白兩色為主，例如由石膏片、石膏板、木材、塑料等材料組成協調沉穩的白色立柱 和建築雕塑；或者一片片石膏板之間的縫隙拉出的黑色橫向線條，會在堆疊起的

立面結構上交錯分割。又或者，將原本用來鋪地板的上漆板材加以利用所形成的

結構式堆疊，來抵銷廢墟的荒涼與失調。儘管結構式堆疊是極度複雜的工程，但結 構體本身的系列性和簡約的色調─黑、木材的棕、主色的白─使整體呈現極

簡的美感。 《客廳》 （ Huiskamer ）系列的早期作品則是繽紛的五顏六色，看起來像

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是把客廳裡的每樣東西都重新整理成一堆一堆，但是沒有根據顏色或物品種類來 篩選的。豐富多彩的顏色和樣式繁多的物件，讓這些作品不具極簡主義的語彙，倒 是透露出某種收納強迫症的行為。

被點名拆除的房子通常看起來非常髒亂，但特文的介入行為為其帶來條理感和結構

性。她用雜七雜八的材料，堆疊成整整齊齊的結構，替不再是家庭避風港的廢墟僅剩 的荒蕪，添加一股美感，即便它已不再是個家。在混亂與破壞中創造美麗與和諧，並 非就大功告成了。組織和整理的實踐本身的美具有極大的意義；它代表記憶的整理

功能。記憶的功能很清楚地表現在藝術家的《檔案室》系列（����年至����年）的作 品名稱上： 《檔案室�-�》 （ Archive �-� ） 、 《SM’s棚頂檔案室》 （ Archive Sheddak

、 《約翰尼斯堡檔案室》 （Archive Johannesburg ） ，和一件近期的指定創作 SM’s ）

《臨時司法大廳阿姆斯特丹�-�檔案室》 （ Archive Temporarily Hall of Justice

。這些作品的取景地點雖然不是廢墟，也沒有採取破壞牆面、地 Amsterdam �-� ）

板、天花板等行為來對建築體本身進行介入，但其手法和《毀壞的房屋》系列乃異 曲而同工。檔案是記憶有形的儲藏庫，我們在建檔過程可以察覺記憶的活動。檔案 和記憶搜集物件和事件。但此搜集活動不是一種隨機運作。檔案和記憶的搜集方

式是有選擇性的。若非如此，便會成為隨機濫選的儲藏庫。但是，檔案和記憶在執 行整理功能時，就意味著許多物件和事件會被放棄、否決、壓抑、遺忘。而被選出來

保存和珍藏的，也不只是被收起來。檔案和記憶會進行分類歸納，把相同或類似的 物件和事件聚合在一起，至於異同參半的則在它們之間創造出某種連結。�

對檔案和／或記憶的這個觀察，說明了特文在廢墟的介入行為，應被解讀為體現

記憶運作的建檔行為。藝術家在混亂中創造秩序，是關於房子的重建／轉型，也是

記憶的回返。她具體展現出房屋即記憶（house-as-memory）與記憶的運作，以 及房屋如何體現曾以此處為家的人們的根⸺非根源，是生根（rooting） 。從這個 觀點思考時，就必然要指出她在廢墟的介入行為，不只是把揀選出來的殘磚碎瓦

堆疊起來，還包含鑿穿地板、拆除牆面，打通空間中原本封閉的平面，創造新的視 野。開啟並串聯房子裡所有空間，讓記憶開始發揮連結和聯想的功能。一直以來阻

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Marjan Teeuwen

擋視域的所有平面一旦打開，連結、關聯、銜接便能夠更積極的運作，讓房子成為 記憶的化身。就此而論，特文的創作呼應了法蘭西絲．葉茲（Frances A. Yates）對

記憶的著名觀點──在印刷術的發明用以幫助我們記憶之前，葉茲回溯這一路以 來所發展的記憶理論，特別是藉由在房子裡來回踱行的記憶術，每個房間都變成

特定記憶的儲存空間，而空間成為時間的宿主。許多藝術家都採用了葉茲的理論， 如卡爾維諾（Italo Calvino）便是其中之一。�

特文的《毀壞的屋宅》經常被拿來和在����年過世、享年��歲的美國藝術家戈登． 馬塔－克拉克（Gordon Matta-Clark）相比較。這類對比乍看之下或許有理，但只

要稍加深入了解兩位藝術家的創作，便可發覺並無太大意義。同特文一般，馬塔－ 克拉克在即將被拆除的房子裡進行介入行為，他在牆面或地板上鑿出幾何造型的 大洞，也鑿穿透視建築物的視野，此時的房子看起來像是遭到隕石撞擊；但和特文 不同的是，他從不篩選、再利用，或重新整理分類房子裡的材料。他將這個藝術實

踐稱為「無建築」 （anarchitecture） ，即複合「無政府狀態」 （anarchy）與「建築」

（architecture）這兩個詞彙。這番合成濃縮之舉，等於是把無政府狀態的政治語 意予以扭曲後，再加入建築領域和家的概念裡。私領域的住家被公領域打開，裡應 外合，使得住家的位置變成一種拒絕公私領域之間的政治區分的心理狀態。�

雖然特文和馬塔－克拉克都是將建築物轉化成藝術表述，但前者採取非常不同的

方式介入廢墟。她同樣在介入的空間中鑿出穿透性的視野，但與馬塔－克拉克的方 式大相逕庭，因為她對房子的材料所進行的揀選與重新整理，讓作品和周圍的社

會實相（social reality）產生共鳴。特文用來體現廢墟的記憶內部活動和過程的手

段，並未見於馬塔－克拉克的作品中；同樣地，她的介入行為創造出的意義，和馬塔

－克拉克的影響也無法相互比擬。

在亂中求序，在醜中尋美，是《毀壞的屋宅》系列下幾件不同計畫的共同點。它們甚

至針對解構這個概念再進行解構，提出「創造和破壞並非背道而馳，而是脣齒相依」 的概念；換句話說，前者是後者的先決條件。藝術家以創作作為一種活動，打造出用

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新的秩序、結構、連結、關係建構的全新建築雕塑，也觸動記憶的整理與建檔功能。 實際上，記憶早已現身於她的創作行為發生的地點⸺房屋，不僅指稱建築物，也涉 及人類的著根和家族的記憶，無論房子所在的大環境，當地主要語言在這個詞的用 法上是否也有雙重意義。如此便導致記憶在這些計畫中用不同的方式迴返。

藝術家在荷蘭數個地點創作《毀壞的屋宅》 ，甚至在俄羅斯進行《毀壞的屋宅－克拉 斯諾亞爾斯克》時，迴返的記憶仍然有點抽象而且籠統。記憶仍然在這些計畫中的 表現隱晦，因為並沒有任何特定的記憶、特定的過去涉入或強加其中，大部分評論

《毀壞的屋宅》系列的藝評家或參觀過這些作品的觀者，都相當讚許藝術家的創造

／解構的美感，對她能執著於創造出如此動人、不尋常的美的行為表演表示驚嘆， 但他們並未將作品和「記憶的運作」聯想在一起。但就《毀壞的屋宅－加薩走廊》而 言，可以清楚意識到廢墟讓記憶的運作有了具體的形象，加薩的語境在此作品中 將記憶這個抽象的概念具象化。

Destroyed House Gaza � , ���� Inkjet print

© Marjan Teeuwen

以色列和巴勒斯坦的衝突源於各自在土地與人民之間糾葛的長久分裂。�遠古時代，

猶太人遭到羅馬帝國大舉驅逐，被迫離開他們歸屬的土地；直到兩千年後，當以色列

於����年宣布建國，他們才得以返回故土，但是下一波的流離潮卻也由此引爆⸺ 自以色列立國以來，巴勒斯坦人展開他們在近代的流亡史。成千上萬的巴勒斯坦 人被迫離開數千年來家園所在的土地，離散於世界各地。

以巴衝突不只是一般傳統的武裝拼搏，其最終是一場記憶之戰，房屋和樹木都被

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Marjan Teeuwen

當作強而有力的作戰工具。兩方政體都主張其人民扎根於這同一片土地，而這樣

的主張便是以記憶為出發點。房屋和樹木形成最重要的文化符號，是他們對根著

（rootedness）各自表述的核心要素，兩者象徵性地提醒著以色列人和巴勒斯坦人， 他們都落地生根在彼此爭奪的同一片土地上。如同某位學者曾經說過，這些主張

土地的根著和所有權的文化符號，已然是這場記憶之戰的重要賭注， 「其中最引起 討論的是，以色列人大規模砍伐巴勒斯坦人所栽種的橄欖樹，懲戒性地毀壞巴勒 斯坦人的房屋，而且以色列人還在巴勒斯坦人被剷平的果園和村落的土地上，種

植外來種的松木林，」以及在東耶路撒冷和約旦河西岸開發屯墾區。�以色列法律學

者伊魯斯．布雷弗曼（Irus Braverman）認為，房屋和樹木對以巴衝突看似無關緊

要，但這個表象下隱匿著對其重要性的不承認。他的論點是，種植／根除、建築／ 拆除這些行為，事實上是由一套法律策略所控管的「戰爭行為」 。�

房屋和樹木在這場記憶之戰中，既是有力的文化符號又是作戰工具；在這個脈絡

下， 《毀壞的屋宅－加薩走廊》並不是以抽象的方式喚醒記憶，而是絕對具體地、著

眼政治地，但就把記憶變成藝術來說則是隱晦的。不同於政治新聞學和宣傳活動， 政治藝術讓在情感和知識層面都受到影響的觀者，主動重新思考他們慣常的信念

，以此達到說服的效果。特文在《毀壞的屋宅－加薩走廊》中的介入行為，同時也介 入了以巴記憶戰爭，具體呈現阿拉伯語的「bait」和希伯來語的「bet」兩個諧音字

所代表的意思⸺破壞被人類當作家的建築物，也是破壞家族的記憶。因為房屋是 人類著根的文化符號；而房屋的毀壞就代表了除根。

Destroyed House Gaza � , ����

Destroyed House Gaza � , ����

© Marjan Teeuwen

© Marjan Teeuwen

Inkjet print

Inkjet print

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特文在����年至����年間對其進行介入行為的房子，是位在加薩南部，臨埃及邊

境拉法（Rafah）附近的小鎮汗尤尼斯（Khan Younis） 。自����年以來，該鎮絕大

部分區域都充斥著難民營，鎮中心也被夷平，做為加薩和埃及的緩衝區。以色列為 阻隔外界進入而建造的水泥牆也延伸到此處，繼續分隔著加薩與埃及。特文在此

取得一棟同意讓她全權使用的房子，屋主是一位哈馬斯（Hamas）組織的成員。房 子在����年的加薩戰爭中遭以色列轟炸，砲火從屋頂穿過地板，炸出一個大洞，屋 主的一位兒子也在這場攻擊中喪命。事件之後房子已成危樓，就等著拆除重建。

首先，特文從一樓地板下方的土開挖，總共挖空了�.�米深的沙；接著為了以二樓地

板做為開口，她敲掉地板與牆面相連的其中三邊，僅餘一邊維持原狀。如此一來， 樓地板因為重量的關係會往下傾折，只靠與牆壁連接的那側拉住而呈現垂直狀懸 吊，但其中有些用支撐物頂出一個角度，就不是��度懸著，這些垂吊的地板正好取 代了被砲火炸碎的牆面。敲開樓地板和挖掉一樓底下的土後，房子裡的空間都在

視覺上連成一氣，拓展出新的視野。這種介入行為製造了深度、高度與距離，而原 本僅由樓梯貫串兩個封閉樓層的建築空間，也得以開啟新的景色／視野。在原來

的建物裡，原本只能看到自身所在的房間，但在介入行為發生後，便能同時將房子

裡的空間一覽無遺。在眼前的空間後方，還存在著更多新空間，這種空間緜延不斷 的幻覺，令人聯想到��世紀藝術家皮拉奈奇（Piranesi）的作品。

藝術家利用房子的殘磚碎瓦和廢材，建造出五道新牆和兩座黑白各一的巨大立柱， 底部從一樓的地面堆起，至高處則幾乎頂到屋頂，窗戶和外牆上的其它開口都用廢

料封住；這些結構並不是無中生有，而是將既有材料重新組合整理。這個行為本身 包含了檔案整理這類運作，而記憶是其中最主要的例子之一。當所有外部入口都被

封堵，房子本身就被藝術家轉化成一個內部空間。再者，兩座頂天立地的巨大立柱

看起來就像身體的骨幹，也加深了對內部空間的聯想，以功能性而非實際上而言， 它們就像這個空間裡的神經中樞──黑色神經中樞指的是房子被砲彈攻擊後在地 面和牆壁留下的黑色斑點和汙跡，白色神經中樞則是意指原始牆面的白色。建築物

原本的缺口用瓦礫填成五道牆，從縫隙射入的光線形成一面非常細膩的白點網格。

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Marjan Teeuwen

光的格線沒有為內部空間帶來光源，沒有為任何區域提供照明，而是成為介入行為

製造出的重組結構的一部分。於此，光線並非用來提供可視的照明，而是被當作內 部空間的構成材料之一；而光的格線和封堵牆面開口的石頭，成了房子新的表皮覆 層。

其中一座以石頭排列而成的低矮立柱的頂端上，特文展示了摧毀這棟房子並炸死 其中一位住民的砲彈碎片，這讓其它在作品中使用的材料都顯得無足輕重；材料 的再利用連帶啟動了程序的整理和記憶的運作，但並未引發特定的記憶。但是炸

彈殘骸和其他材料有絕對性的不同，因為它代表一個特定的記憶⸺這棟歷時�� 年的房子被炸彈和手榴彈攻擊摧毀的那一刻；在時間軸上，一剎那頃空間結構便

能產生永恆的變化。展示炸彈和手榴彈碎片的範圍很小，很容易被忽視，畢竟這些 殘骸被擺放在密集排列的結構之中，相形之下並不那麼氣勢強大。但這個不易被 察覺的低調展示，也可以說是特文《毀壞的屋宅》的核心，因為在這範圍裡，記憶不

是一個整理、建檔的過程，而是以一個記憶物件的具體形式出現；在這個範圍裡， 在這些滿載記憶的痕跡裡，無法不去正視《毀壞的屋宅－加薩走廊》的地點所承載 的重要性。

Destroyed House Gaza �� , ���� Inkjet print

© Marjan Teeuwen

特 文 運 用 介 入 行 為 將 被 炸 毀 的 房 子 轉 化 成 一 件 建 築 雕 塑，一 個「記 憶 的 場 域」

（a site of memory）─這是由法國史學家皮耶．諾哈（Pierre Nora）�所提出的 概念。這些「場域」可以包括處所、物件，或其它現象，當過去與現在的連續性被中

斷時，這些場域對於某個特定族群會有重要的象徵意義。紀念碑、紀念館，甚至一

22

年之中為了追憶生命中的失去或慶祝某個特殊事件的紀念日，都可以作為記憶的

場域。雖然在巴勒斯坦和以色列，房屋、橄欖樹和松樹都有各自代表的象徵意義， 但這裡所指的意義都還是很廣泛性的，並未和特定的房屋或樹木有所連結。特文

在《毀壞的屋宅－加薩走廊》進行的介入行為強化了房屋的象徵意義，將其轉化成 記憶所繫之處。

����年��月此作完成後參觀這間房屋的加薩人民，不僅能欣賞這件藝術創作和附

加在這間廢墟的美感，更可在此反思並紀念加薩人民和其土地之間被迫斷離的情 感。以房子所在界定出的空間，紀念著人與土地的感情尚未斷裂的那段時間；也紀 念著房子和在此著根的家庭。被毀壞的房屋體現記憶的力量，藉此修復時間的連續

性。但是一座廢墟的空間維度有可能重建過去的記憶、重建出暫時的維度嗎？這個

可能性之所以成立，是因為被炸毀的房子不僅是一個殘破、具藝術性的建築結構， 具空間性的廢墟實體已體現了時間，被砲火攻擊留下的坑洞彈痕則體現創傷的時間

性。炸彈的襲擊所帶來的混亂與傷害不僅是物質上的損失，更是時間性的大破壞。那

是一起事件，也是一個歷史性的時刻，在發生的當下難以有太多的體會。像炸彈攻

擊如此重大的事件，所造成的強大破壞性和殺傷力，是無法想像的經驗和歷程。事

件過後留下的痕跡在房子的每個角落都清晰可見，� 它們是失敗的表徵，或說是創

傷留下的後遺症。這種失敗的經驗會阻絕自動將事件存入記憶的可能性，為此，就 必須先發展儲存記憶的條件，這正是特文在《毀壞的屋宅－加薩走廊》所做的。

Destroyed House Gaza �� , ���� Inkjet print

© Marjan Teeuwen

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Marjan Teeuwen

這意味著，特文在《毀壞的屋宅－加薩走廊 ＝》所進行的介入行為，並不只是把廢棄 的空間轉化成藝術性的表述和記憶的形體而已；事實上，她更像是把創傷的時間

性轉化成記憶的時間性。因其「爆炸性」本質而無法被內化的事件，藉由創造紀念 的條件而被轉化成記憶。將混亂轉化成秩序、廢墟轉化為建築雕塑，特文亦將創傷 轉化成記憶；為了協助那些受困在創傷反覆誘發狀態的人們，在文化重建與社會 適應上進行修復，這是藝術家瑪里安・特文所貢獻的一己之力。

Destroyed House Gaza �� , ���� Inkjet print

© Marjan Teeuwen

�

若欲了解定義建檔組織之原則的分析，可參考筆者所著之《檔案籌備：新媒體時代中的藝術與攝影》 ，倫敦，����年。

�

參見Judith Russi Kirshner， 〈戈登．馬塔－克拉克作品中的社群概念〉 ，收錄於《戈登．馬塔－克拉克》 ，C. Diserens主編，紐約，����

�

法蘭西絲．葉茲， 《記憶之術》 ，芝加哥，����年。

年，頁���-���。

�

參見Carol Bardenstein， 〈樹木、森林，和巴勒斯坦及以色列集體記憶之形塑〉 ，收錄於《記憶的作為》 ，Mieke Bal、Jonathan Crewe、

�

Laura van Gelder，碩士論文，萊登大學（未出版） ，����年。

Leo Spitzer主編，漢諾瓦，����年，頁���-��。

�

Irus Braverman， 《插旗：以色列／巴勒斯坦的樹木、土地、戒律》 ，劍橋，����年； 〈違法的力量：在東耶路撒冷的拆屋及反抗〉 ，收錄於

�

Pierre Nora， 〈記憶與歷史間：記憶所繫之處〉 ，收錄於《再現》 ，��，����年，頁�-��； 《記憶所繫之處》 ，�－�冊，紐約，����年。

《法律與社會探究》 ，��: �（����年） ，頁���-���。 �

若欲了解關於創傷及其與記憶之關係的分析，可參見筆者所著之〈論述性的表現：經驗、記憶、創傷〉 ，M.Bal等人主編，收錄於《記憶的

行為：當下的文化回憶》 ，漢諾瓦，����年，頁��－��； 〈被記憶捕捉〉 ，收錄於《心中的藝術：當代影像如何形塑思想》 ，芝加哥，����年，頁 ���－���； 《被歷史捕捉：藝術、文學、理論的大屠殺效應》 ，史丹佛，����年。

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Quiet and Disquiet in James Casebere’s Photographs Jeffery Grove

James Casebere is internationally recognized for his pioneering work in the field of photography.

He is of a generation of predominately American artists who, in the 1970s, began to question—through photography, film, video and performance—the veracity of everyday images.

Inspired by the philosophical writings of thinkers including Roland Barthes and Walter Benjamin, as well as newly prevalent post-modern critical theories about photography and their own experiences as first generation baby boomers reared on a steady diet of mediated images, Casebere and

artists including Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, Laurie Simmons, Richard Prince, Matt Mullican, James Welling, Barbara Kruger, and others, set out to question the very idea of originality and

authenticity. For Casebere and his peers, who came to be known as the “Pictures Generation,” it was no longer an article of faith that photographs depicted a truth.

Over the past forty years, Casebere’s practice has been to develop a unique and increasingly com-

plex language of “constructed photography” in which he builds models of architectural structures, lights theatrically and subsequently photographs. Based on architectural, art historical and cinematic sources, his table-sized constructions are made of simple materials and pared down to essen-

tial forms. Over the years, Casebere's images have expanded and refined to accommodate his exploration of different aesthetic and technical challenges. "Photography resonates with me because it manipulates our perception of the world around us," he says. "I am interested in photog-

raphy as a means of persuasion, of propaganda and constructing histories. I am interested in how photography creates and reconstructs reality." �

Born in Lansing, Michigan in 1953, into a comfortable, middle-class family, Casebere grew up during what has come to be known as the “Golden Age” of television, the era when television was

ascending to its preeminent position as America's medium for disseminating images. Regarding this influence, Casebere once noted.

I am part of the first generation of artists to really grow up with television… I was also

influenced by pop culture and vernacular architecture. I wanted to make art that

appealed to a wider audience-that entertained, cajoled and seduced, much like TV and the movies. �

25

JAMES CASEBERE

Although the scenes Casebere constructed and photographed in his earliest works are redolent of

the environment in which he was raised, they are not anecdotal. Instead, they more likely refer-

ence the pared-down sets of sitcoms and theatrical programs broadcast on television in the 1950s and early 1960s. These early works focused on questioning—and at times skewering—tropes of

suburban comfort through a critical examination of domestic space. In these early works from the mid-1970s, Casebere’s models were simple and at times cartoonish, roughly cut and assembled

pieces of cardboard used to mimic interior spaces where ordinary objects ended up in absurd situations. For example, in Fork in the Refrigerator, 1975, a giant (real) fork penetrates a cardboard

refrigerator . Amusing at first glance, his images from this period often project a feeling of anxiety, perhaps reflecting the growing disquiet in so many American homes during the Vietnam era.

Fork in the Refrigerator , ���� gelatin silver print © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

In his earliest photographs, Casebere chose to examine pedestrian, familiar, and domestic symbols

of contemporary life and transform them in an almost Surrealist way, in a quest to find something

extraordinary in the seemingly every-day. Reflecting on his desire to make these pictures, Casebere observed that at this time he “was not interested in specific sites or in documenting actions that took place in a real space. I was not interested in documentary at all, per se. In fact, I was also philosophically opposed to the notion of allegory as an artistic device.” � Allegory is a story, or a picture,

that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a political or moral one. Casebere

instead asks viewers to rely on their own associations and memories, to fill in the gaps and to create a context in which to understand his images, rather than instructing viewers on what he expects them to see.

26

While Casebere is recognized primarily as a photographer, he is equally a sculptor, cinematographer, and film director, an “auteur” of photographic tableaux that resonate deeply as narrative, akin to cinema. Indeed, by the early 1980's Casebere’s work had taken on what might be characterized as a more cinematic, less telegenic quality. Still using black and white film, the tonality of his images became richer: his models were more carefully fabricated; crisper, more soundly constructed; lit in a more sophisticated manner. One of the earliest images included in this exhibition, Storefront (1982) is typical of his work from this period and is typified by many of the structural and functional characteristics that would continue to inform Casebere’s images of architecture. Storefront is distinguished by its severe, almost classical composition. Less than inviting, not quite menacing, rarely has a storefront looked less designed to welcome. As in all his photographs, the scene is devoid of human presence and depicts an empty, moody environment. One is never quite sure whether the spaces he imagines are abandoned or simply unused in the off-hours: time remains ambiguous. There is no extraneous detail—whatever mysterious narrative is being serviced is told through a tightly restricted economy of means. Casebere purposely strips down and depopulates his scenes to create spaces at once evocative and haunting; engendering a sense of the uncanny, they conjure feelings one might find unsettling.

Storefront , ����

vintage gelatin silver print © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

The pervasive sense of absence and evasion of overt narrative are qualities that distinguish Casebere’s work to this day, allowing his scenarios to be interpreted almost as psychological profiles or character studies of space, rather than constituent reproductions of a specific place. Casebere notes that he never set out to “represent preexisting places realistically,” or to document anything. He states, “I've never been interested in photographing the world… I suppose when I started making photographs …it was really about creating a language that was about relationships — about ideas, not things.” � Among Casebere's most well-known series are images of public and institutional spaces

27

JAMES CASEBERE

he began producing in the early 1990s, such as Prison Cell with Skylight ( 1993 ) , which include

courtrooms, detainment cells, hospitals and prisons, works which at first glance might appear

straightforward, but in fact address ambitious “ideas,” and weighty, critical issues informing culture.

It is in these complex bodies of work that one begins to understand Casebere’s abiding interest in the

history of, and concern for, issues of social order, social justice, or what he terms, “the mechanisms of social control—be it in schools, hospitals, poorhouses or prisons.”

�

Prison Cell with Skylight , ����

Venice Ghetto , ����

© James Casebere

© James Casebere

cibachrome print

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

gelatin silver print

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

Reflecting on the genesis of these works Casebere recalled, “I set about analyzing the different architectural manifestations and representing them in different images in different ways.” �

While many of the works in these series depict the interiors of institutional spaces, other works related to these sequences show the facades or exteriors of these buildings. Venice Ghetto (1991), included in this exhibition, is one such work and has a direct link to the series addressing internment and confinement. Casebere observed.

The Venice ghetto image is about … social control because it is about the origins of the skyscraper in Venice. Jews were forced to live on a few specific islands in Venice. They had to return to the island every day, before a certain hour at night. They were forced to build their houses higher and higher because they couldn’t spread out horizontally to other parts of the city. This, too, is imprisonment. � 28

This interest in and concern for social systems of oppression and coercion that Casebere has explored in various bodies of work in part belies the statement he once made in which he called “emptiness” his subject. It would actually appear that in fact, despite his choice to emphatically omit any vestige of human presence in his images, both the physical and psychological spaces that shape the human condition are very much a part of Casebere’s investigation. As such, his images, while not representations of actual places, do in one sense attempt to delimit psychological spaces that real people experience in culture. Three photographs in this exhibition, linked thematically by a shared architectural feature—a set of stairs—illustrate in different ways the manner in which Casebere can repeatedly explore a seemingly quotidian form and continue to evoke new and nuanced associations: Stairwell (1983-2012) Green Staircase #3 (2002) and Turning Hallway (2003)

Stairwell , ����-����

gelatin silver print © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

Green Staircase #� , ����

digital chromogenic print mounted to Plexiglas © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

29

JAMES CASEBERE

Turning Hallway , ����

digital chromogenic print mounted to Plexiglas © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

The former photograph is one of the earliest (and simultaneously most recent) examples of this typology.

Shot from above, the image provides a vertiginous perspective onto a seemingly endless sequence of stairs, descending all four sides of tightly cramped stairwell. Light spills in from square windows, casting mysterious shadows along the way, setting a moody and ominous tone. In the popular imagination, and particularly in the visual history of cinema, staircases and stairs are both a common subject and a potent metaphor. Endless rumbles, countless fist fights, violent shootings and numerous death falls have been enacted against a backdrop of stairs. And it seems no horror movie would be complete without a scene in which some hapless character inexplicably decides to descend a darkened staircase to investigate a worrying sound emanating from below. From Sunset Boulevard to Battleship Potemkin; from A Streetcar Named Desire to Rocky and Titanic, stairways have played key roles, acting as supporting characters to symbolize everything from faded glamor to helpless endangerment; from fragile desire to victory and love. Casebere’s Stairwell is no less fraught with potential meaning, and this stairwell in particular resembles none more closely than the one that finds James Stewart’s acrophobic character Scottie overcoming his vertigo, in Alfred Hitchcock’s film of the same name, to follow the tortured object of his desire, Madeleine/Judy up the stairs into a bell tower, from which she tragically falls, plummeting to her death .

Film Still from Vertigo

(Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)

30

Green Staircase #3, (2002), while perhaps less loaded with portent, is no less layered with meaning—it vibrates with a tension amplified by the disjuncture between understanding what constitutes real and illusionistic space and the potential meaning of the scene portrayed. A perfect example of what one writer described as Casebere’s eerie yet inviting images, � Green Staircase #3,(2002) belongs to a group he began in 1998 in which Casebere “flooded” his images with water. He began to conceptualize these works as early as 1989 following a trip to Berlin after the fall of the wall.

When the first “flooded” images materialized, Casebere remembers that he was “using water as a device to signify things like the passage of time, the loss of memory, a sense of mourning, a sense

of loss.” � He used the same device in a series of photographs based on the American colonial architecture at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and Thomas Jefferson’s home Monticello, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Monticello is revered a shrine to neoclassical architecture and Jefferson’s creative inventions, but it was also the plantation house for his farm where over 400 individuals were enslaved. By flooding Monticello, Phillips Academy, and the related colonial architecture of Green Staircase #3 (2002), Casebere may appear to imply a wish to cleanse or “wash away” the sins of our forefathers or set about a process of decay to destroy what they built.

Caleb Smith observed that in the “flooded” pictures, “it is hard to say whether the water signifies

a repressed past, returned to haunt the house of Enlightenment, or a force of future rot and ruin.”�� Throughout the 2000s, Casebere produced bodies of work that imagined the architecture of the past, referenced historic structures in Spain and Turkey, and continued to create interiors of imprecise location and time. In 2009, Casebere pivoted in this approach when he returned to a theme that had informed his work at the beginning of his career: suburban American architecture. This series, Landscape with Houses, is one Casebere acknowledges was triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis, a nationwide financial crisis that occurred in the United States from 2007-2010, and which left many Americans holding mortgages with a higher debt than their homes were worth. The term commonly used to describe this state is “underwater.” Regarding the genesis of this body of work, Casebere explained,

The Landscape with Houses series was triggered by the mortgage crisis. In 2009, I began exploring the suburbs and exurbs north of New York and thinking about them as a subject for the first time since my earliest work. It was a return to the ideas about home and the postmodern that inspired me; ideas that were fueled by Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, by Robert Venturi, which I was rereading for the first time since I left art school, in the late nineteen-seventies.��

31

JAMES CASEBERE

Casebere recalls driving along the Taconic Parkway, near Poughkeepsie, New York, en route to his home and studio upstate when he began to see how dramatically changed so-called “middle-class housing” had become since he lived in the suburbs, and how radically urban sprawl had encroached upon once rural areas. In the years leading up to the creation of the Landscape with Houses series—a suite totaling ten photographs—Casebere’s models had become more ambitious in scope, nothing would have indicated the compositional complexity and increased attention to detail he would bring to bear in producing this new body of work. Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #1(2009) is one of two photographs from this series included in the exhibition and the first he produced. It most clearly expresses Casebere’s reaction to what he described as “discover[ing] the spread of cookie-cutter McMansion subdivisions, all mixed up with the unplanned ad-hoc triumph of vernacular taste, and a carbon footprint spun out of control.”��

Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #� , ���� framed digital chromogenic print mounted to Dibond © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

32

More expressive, varied, and intricate than most of the models that preceded it, the “set” for Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #1, (2009), could perhaps more appropriately be called a “diorama.” For the first time fusing carefully hand-made cardboard constructions typical of his production with commercially produced hobbyist materials, such as small scale trees and artificial grass commonly used by model-train enthusiasts, Casebere created an environment both heightened in its “realness” and sweeping in scope. In successive images, Casebere photographed the model from above; repurposed elements into new models; upped the family wholesomeness of the neighborhood with the addition of jungle gyms, above ground pools, satellite dishes, and in one photograph, he even added a rainbow in the sky. This series of photographs projects a sense of all-American goodness, a sensibility that reached its apotheosis in Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #9(2011) .

Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #� , ���� framed digital chromogenic print mounted to Dibond © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

Shallow Pool , ����

framed archival pigment print mounted to Dibond © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

With its foreground dominated by a school sports field doing double duty for both football and baseball, piles of wood stacked on its perimeter—no doubt in preparation for the Homecoming celebration bonfire—this decidedly progressive neighborhood features homes with solar heating panels and energy producing windmills in the distance. As right as everything seems in this sunny slice of Suburbia, there lingers, as it does in so much of Casebere’s work, a persistent sense of, if 33

JAMES CASEBERE

not menace, then disquiet. The emptiness so familiar from his other bodies of photographs seems more amplified here, the absence of bodies even more disproportionate to the seemingly well populated neighborhood; the homes painted in cheerful colors somehow more forlorn. Indeed, it is this very use of color and Casebere’s decision to amplify it so dramatically—making it a lead protagonist in the story line—that further distinguishes this series of photographs.

The preponderance of Casebere’s previous images had been rendered in black and white, sepia and umber tones, and if color appeared at all, as in the Monticello and Phillips Exeter photographs, it was judiciously deployed. Here, in the entire Landscape with Houses series, however, Casebere unleashes a Technicolor torrent of color so high-keyed and saturated in quality that it serves to underscore an analogy: that these models, more so than any Casebere had previously created, resemble nothing so much as the illusionistic stage sets erected on a Hollywood backlot. Read in this way, these images become perfect metaphors for the idealized dream so many people were promised and sold—a future of prosperity and satisfaction, symbolized by the American Dream of owning one’s own home—an assurance that for millions of people indeed turned out to be nothing more than an illusion.

Bright Yellow House on Water , ����

framed archival pigment print mounted to Dibond © James Casebere

Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

Although the cheerfully colored images in the Landscape with Houses series may harbor some darker allusions, the increasingly vibrant photographs Casebere has been producing in recent years are anything but. In two engaging new series, Casebere employs a brilliant palette of color to produce unquestionably beautiful images of architectural interiors and freestanding structures.

Shallow Pool (2017), for instance, is from a larger body of photographs in which Casebere channeled the theories of “emotional architecture,” the name given to the style of modernist architec-

34

ture conceived by Mexican architect Luis Barragán and the artist Mathias Goéritz, who, frustrated by the cold functionalism of modernism, embraced space, color and light to create buildings that engendered warmth, meditation, and reflection. In previous bodies of work, Casebere always referenced existing structures that were designed by others, as in the Barragán images. More recently, however, he has been producing a series of photographs such as Bright Yellow House on Water (2018), for which he is actually the architect, designing and building the open structures that he ultimately photographs.

The works in this series are hybrids of public/private spaces. Geometrically designed edifices rendered in an arresting palette, these buildings appear simultaneously concrete and abstract.

Open, even unfinished buildings of the sort that provide sanctuary—beach houses, cabanas, bathhouses—they are places the artist refers to as “structures of pride, tenacity, and structural stabili-

ty.” �� Casebere describes them, saying, “there is such a playful atmosphere to them. It feels like an expression of the indomitable human spirit. These things could be rising out of the water like

the first animal to emerge out of the water and live on land.” �� Neither utopian nor dystopian, these images are meant to inspire an appreciation of pure beauty coupled with a twinge of fear. In these unmoored, flooded pavilions Casebere sees human ingenuity in the face of global warming.

Acknowledging the possible dread of an unknown future that these pictures might embody, he also

insists that we “can’t afford to throw our hands up in despair and resignation.” �� In fact, Casebere acknowledges that these structures are about tenacity, adaptation, ingenuity, and perhaps, optimism, telegraphing a sensibility that reflects his own stated belief that in this life, sometimes, “there is a silver lining.” ��

35

JAMES CASEBERE

� Alexander Ho,“Deconstructing Constructions: James Casebere’ s Works ����-����,”Time LightBox, November ��,

����. < https://time.com/�����/james-caseberes-works-����-����/> (Accessed: �� November ����)

� Douglas Bohr,“Interview with James Casebere, Musee d’ Art Contemporain De Montreal,”����, p. ��.

� Okwui Enwezor and James Casebere,“Photography and the Illusion of History,”in James Casebere: Works, 1975-2010,

ed. Okwui Enwezor (Bologna: Damiani, ����), pp. ��-��.

� Helmke, Juliet.“James Casebere’ s New Work, Inspired by the Architecture of Luis Barragán’s, On View at Sean

Kelly Gallery,”Blouin Art Info, February �, ����.

� �

James Casebere: Works, 1975-2010 , p. ��.

Ibid.

�

Ibid, p. ��.

�

James Casebere: Works, 1975-2010 , p. ��.

�

A Willing Suspension of Disbelief, Art on Paper, January-February ����, p. ���.

�� Caleb Smith,“In a Different Light,”in James Casebere: Fugitive, Haus Der Kunst, New York: Prestel, ����, p. ��. �� Bohnacker, Siobhan.“Little Boxes,”The New Yorker, December �, ���� �� Ibid.

�� James Casebere, in conversation with Adair Lentini, October ��, ����. �� James Casebere, email to Jeffrey Grove, November �, ����. �� Ibid.

�� Miss Rosen,“Home James,”Upstate Diary, no. �, p. ��.

Fig. �

Fork in the Refrigerator, ����, gelatin silver print

Fig. �

Prison Cell with Skylight, ����, Cibachrome print

Fig. � Fig. � Fig. � Fig. � Fig. � Fig. � Fig. �

Storefront, ����, gelatin silver print

Venice Ghetto, ����, gelatin silver print

Stairwell, ����-����, gelatin silver print

Green Staircase #3, ����, digital chromogenic print mounted to Plexiglas Turning Hallway, ����, digital chromogenic print mounted to Plexiglas Film Still from Vertigo

Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #1, ����, digital chromogenic print mounted to Dibond

Fig. �� Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #9, ����, digital chromogenic print mounted to Dibond Fig. �� shallow Pool, ����, framed archival pigment print mounted to Dibond

Fig. �� Bright Yellow House on Water, ����, framed archival pigment print mounted to Dibond

36

Destroyed House Gaza: Transforming Trauma into Memory Ernst van Alphen

What does one destroy when one destroys a house? First of all, the building that the word ‘house’ refers to. Although today more and more people live in tents or other temporary constructions, and

a house can also consist of a boat, as in a houseboat, we first of all think of an architectural construction, a building, in which people live and which they have made their home. But the word

‘house’ signifies more than just the building that offers a home; it also stands for /family/. When we talk about the House of Orange we do not refer to one of their royal palaces. The term covers

the complete lineage and ancestry of the family, not only the family members that are still alive.

In other words, the word ‘house’ also refers to a family and its roots, to genealogical memory.

In languages such as English and Dutch this use of the word house is metaphorical. Only in special contexts and cases does the word house have this meaning of /family/ as intertwined with the

architectural meaning. The best-known example is Edgar Allen Poe’s story “The Fall of the House

of Usher”. The House of Usher is not diagnosed by its destruction but by its downfall, which indicates that it concerns primarily a family and not a building, although the collapse of the building

materialises the downfall, indeed the extinction of the family. In Arab and Hebrew, however, they have one term that has these two different meanings systematically. The Arab word ‘bait’ and the

Hebrew word ‘bet’ are homonyms. They each concern a concept – or, if you wish, two words that are both spelled and pronounced identically, but have different meanings. In those languages the

destruction of a house is completely ambiguous: it refers to the destruction of a building that serves as a home to people and to the destruction of the genealogical memory of a family; and the one through the other, because the physical construction is the equivalent of the roots of a family it harbours.

In the recent art projects of Marjan Teeuwen the term ‘destroyed house’ contains yet another ambiguity. The titles of these projects are specified by the location of the house:Destroyed

House (2007/2008), Destroyed House Krasnoyarsk (2009), Destroyed House Piet Mondriaanstraat

(2010-2011), Destroyed House Bloemhof (2012), Destroyed House Op Noord (2014), Destroyed

House Leiden(2015), and most recently Destroyed House Gaza (2017). All these projects were

interventions in houses that were discarded and destined to be destroyed. They were old or ruined and there was no reason to renovate them anymore. It was their fate to be destroyed. Teeuwen’s interventions in these old, ruined houses look at first sight as a further destruction of houses that 37

Marjan Teeuwen

are already in the process of being destroyed. She breaks away floors or walls, which gives the impression of performing the finishing stroke or fatal blow. The project of the artist is, then, not

an act of creation, but an act of destruction; or better, in her projects creation is a form of destruction. But there is more to it.

Destroyed House Krasnoyarsk � , ����

Inkjet print

© Marjan Teeuwen

Teeuwen re-uses the remainders of the ruined houses. They are piled up; windows or other kinds of

openings are closed off by left-over materials. She also creates sculptures out of debris, rubbish and

used materials. These added interventions to the ruined house sometimes consist of an arbitrary

collection of materials. Sometimes however all the re-used materials are selected and categorized on the basis of materials and colors. Teeuwen did this for example in her Archive -series and in the

architectural sculptures created in several of her Destroyed Houses.Most of the time the re-used materials are selected on the basis of colours, mostly the color white or black. For instance, harmo-

nious white piles and architectural sculptures consisting of plaster plate, plasterboard, wood, plas-

tics etcetera. Other times the piles are intersected by horizontal black stripes of the space in

between the layers of plasterboard. Or, the use of painted planks, which formerly covered the floors, result in structured piles that counter the desolate disharmony of the discarded houses.

Although the structured piles are highly complex, aesthetically they look minimalistic because of the seriality of the structures and the reduced color scheme; black, the brown colour of wood, but

especially white are the dominant colours. Earlier works, like the Huiskamer series (Living Room)

are extremely colorful. They look as if all the belongings present in a living room have been re-ordered into piles, without making a selection on the basis of colour or kind of object. Although

these works do not make a minimalistic impression because of the abundance of colours and the great variety of objects, these works, too demonstrate an obsessive practice of ordering and structuring.

38

Whereas a house that is designated to be destroyed tends to look chaotic, Teeuwen’s interventions create order and structure. Her ordered piles of whatever kind of materials adds beauty to the deso-

late spaces of the deserted building, no longer a house, for no longer the haven of a family. This creation of beauty and harmony out of chaos and destruction is, however, not an end in itself. The beauty of the practice of ordering and structuring is highly significant; it embodies the ordering

activity of memory. The activity of memory is explicitly evoked by the titles of a series of works

she made between 2007 and 2010 in the Archive- series: Archive 1-4, Archive Sheddak SM’s,

Archive Johannesburg and an recent assignment Archive Temporarily Hall of Justice Amsterdam

1-5. Although not situated in discarded houses, and not dealing with architectural interventions like destroying walls, floors and ceilings, these works share all characteristics with the Destroyed

Houses. Archives are physical storages of memory and in archival processes we can recognize the activity of memory. Archives and memory collect objects and events. But they do not do this arbitrarily. Archives and memory are selective in how they collect. If they did not select they would

end up as arbitrary storages. But the ordering activity of archives and memory implies that many objects and events are discarded, refused, repressed, forgotten. What is selected to be kept and

relished is not just stored. Archives and memory categorize; they put together objects or events

with the same or similar qualities. They create links between objects and events that are different in some respects but have qualities in common in other respects.

1

This view of the archive and, or as memory suggests that Teeuwen’s interventions in discarded houses should be understood as archival practices embodying the work of memory. Her creation of order in chaos does both concern a rebuilding / the transformation of the house and a return of

memory to the house. She visualizes and materializes the house-as-memory, the work of memory

and the rooting of the people who lived there, which are embodied by the house. Not the roots, but the rooting. From this perspective it is important to notice that her interventions in the discarded

houses do not only consist of pilings of selected left-over materials. She also opens up floors or removes walls, creating views in spaces that were so far closed off. Connections and associations

established by the activity of memory are enabled by opening up and connecting all spaces in these houses. The house as embodiment of memory depends on the intensification and materialization of links, relations and connections, performed by opening up of all surfaces that so far

blocked views. In this, Teeuwen’s projects resonate with the famous view of memory presented by Frances A. Yates, who traced the theories of memory from antiquity on, before the invention of

print came along to assist us in memorizing, and focused especially on the art of memorizing by means of a walk through a house. Each room becomes the storage space for particular memories,

39

Marjan Teeuwen

and space becomes the host of time. Many artists have taken up Yates’s vision, among whom Italo Calvino. 2 Teeuwen’s Destroyed Houses are often compared to the works of American artist Gordon

Matta-Clark, who died at the age of 35 in 1978. These comparisons make only sense at first sight,

but become much less meaningful when we look more closely at their projects. Like Teeuwen,

Matta-Clark intervened in houses that were going to be demolished. He opened up views in and through the building by removing geometrical forms from walls or floors. Often this made the

impression as if the house was hit by a meteorite. In contrast with Teeuwen, he never selected, re-used and re-ordered the materials that came out of the house. He called his artistic practice “anarchitecture,” conflating the word ‘anarchy’ with ‘architecture’. This condensation added the

political twist of anarchy to the domain of architecture and the home. The personal domain of the

home was opened up by the public domain, inside and outside were connected, and the place of the home was converted into a state of mind that refused the political distinction between personal and public. 3 Both Teeuwen and Matta-Clark transform buildings into artistic statements. But Teeuwen’s inter

ventions in discarded houses take a very different direction. Although she also opens up views in

and through the houses in which she intervenes, her selecting and re-ordering of the materials of the house resonate with the surrounding social reality in a different way from Matta-Clark’s inter-

ventions. The devices by means of which Teeuwen embodies the inner activity and process of memory in the ruined houses cannot be recognized in the works of the American artist. Nor are the meanings these interventions generate comparable to Matta-Clark’s effects.

The different projects of the Destroyed House series Teeuwen realized have in common that they

create order out of chaos, and beauty out of ugliness. Moreover, they deconstruct the notion of destruction itself, proposing creation not as the opposite of destruction, but as intimately entangled with it, namely as its precondition. By performing creation as an activity that establishes a new architectural sculpture with a new order, structure, links and relations, she evokes the ordering,

archival activity of memory. In fact, memory is already suggested by the location of her performances of creation: the house, not only referring to an architectural construction but also to the

rooting of human beings and genealogical memory, whether or not the dominant language in the

community where the houses are situated uses the word in its double meaning. As a result, memory is evoked in these projects in several ways.

40

When she realized her Destroyed Houses in several locations in the Netherlands, and even in Russia with Destroyed House Krasnoyarsk, this evocation of memory remained abstract or gener-

al. The embodiment of memory in these projects remained implicit because no specific memories were involved, no specific pasts imposed themselves. Most critics and visitors of the Destroyed House - series were impressed by the beauty of her creations/destructions and by the obsessive-

ness of the performance that resulted in this stirring, unconventional beauty, but they did not make the association with the ‘work of memory’. In the case of Destroyed House Gaza the recognition of the destroyed house as an embodiment of the work of memory is unavoidable. It is the context of Gaza that transforms the abstract idea of memory into a concrete one.

Destroyed House Gaza � , ���� Inkjet print

© Marjan Teeuwen

The conflict between Israel and Palestine originates in historical ruptures of their respective bonds between the land and the people. 4 The ancient Jewish people were exiled by the hands of the

Romans from the land they felt connected to and identified with. It was only after two thousands years, in 1948, that they were able to return to the land they originally came from by establishing

the State of Israel. This led to a relay of exilic existence: Palestinians have experienced exile in more recent times, since the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948. This has resulted in the

expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the land in which they have been rooted for thousands of years.

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not just an armed conflict fought by means of conventional

weapons. Ultimately it is a war on memory, in which houses and trees are employed as powerful instruments of warfare. Both states claim to be rooted in the same land, and those claims are based on memory. Houses and trees have become the most important cultural symbols that are

central in their respective articulations of rootedness. Houses and trees remind Israelis as well as Palestinians symbolically of their rootedness in the same contested area. As one scholar put it,

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Marjan Teeuwen

these cultural symbols claiming rootedness and ownership over the land have become major stakes in this war of memory, “of which some of the most salient examples are Israel’s massive

uprooting of Palestinian olive trees, the punitive demolition of Palestinian homes, and the Israeli overplanting of bulldozed Palestinian orchards and villages with non-native pine forests”, and the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem and at the West Bank. 5 Israeli legal scholar Irus

Braverman suggests that the seeming unimportance of houses and trees to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict harbours a denial of their true significance. He argues that acts of planting/uprooting and building/unbuilding are in fact “acts of war,” regulated by a range of legal strategies. 6 In the context of this memory war in which houses and trees are powerful cultural symbols as well as instruments of warfare in the war on memory, Destroyed House Gaza does not evoke memory

abstractly, but utterly concretely and politically, albeit implicitly – as it becomes art. In difference

from political journalism and propaganda, political art achieves its convincing effect by an appeal to viewers to reconsider their routine convictions because they are touched on an affective as well as an intellectual level. Teeuwen’s interventions in Destroyed House Gaza are at the same time

interventions in the Israeli/Palestinian memory war, making visible that the Arab homonym ‘bait’ and the Hebrew homonym ‘bet’ refer to the destruction of a building that serves as a home to

people as well as to the destruction of the genealogical memory of a family. For the rooting of human beings is embodied in the cultural symbol of the house; their uprooting in its destruction.

Destroyed House Gaza � , ����

Destroyed House Gaza � , ����

© Marjan Teeuwen

© Marjan Teeuwen

Inkjet print

Inkjet print

The house in which Teeuwen performed her intervention in 2016-17 is located in the town of Khan

Younis, near Rafah, in the South of Gaza near the Egyptian border. Since 1948 the town consists

for a major part of a refugee camp. The centre of the town has been demolished in order to create

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a buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt. The concrete wall, which Israel built to close Gaza off from Israel also continues here between Gaza and Egypt. The house put at Teeuwen’s disposal was owned by a member of Hamas and bombed by Israel in the 2014 Gaza War. The bomb created a

big hole in the roof and in the floor underneath. One son of the owner was killed by the attack.

After the bomb attack the house was uninhabitable and waiting to be demolished and rebuilt.

The first thing Teeuwen did was dig out the soil under the first floor; she removed one and a half meter of sand. Next she opened up the floors of the second floor by cutting open three sides of the floor; the fourth side remained intact; as a result, the floors folded downwards due to their weight.

Subsequently most of the floors were hanging vertically, some of them supported by props preventing a completely vertical hanging. Thus they replaced the walls who were blown away by

the bomb. By means of opening up the floors and digging out the soil beneath the ground floor, all the spaces in the house became visually connected and new perspectives were created. This inter-

vention created depth, height, distance, and as result vistas/views in an architectural space formerly consisting of two closed of floors connected by a staircase. Whereas in the original building one

could see only the room in which one dwelled, after these interventions one had visual access to all the house’s spaces at the same time. The illusion of an endless space, with new spaces behind those nearest, was created, reminiscent of the images of the 18th century artist Piranesi.

Debris and used materials from the house were re-used for the construction of five new walls and

two enormous piles, a black one and a white one, reaching from the ground to almost the roof of the building. Windows and other openings in the outer walls were closed with rubbish, These constructions are not creations ex nihilo but re-orderings of what was already there. This re-ordering evoked archival organizations, of which memory is one of the prime examples. By closing of all openings to the space outside the house, Teeuwen transformed the house into an inner space.

The suggestion of being inside an inner space was also evoked by the two enormous piles reaching from bottom to roof, because they looked like the spines of a body. Not realistically, but rather functionally; they were like the nerve centers of this inner space. The black nerve centre referred

to the black spots and traces on walls and floors left by the bomb that had hit the house. The white nerve centre referred to the original white color of the walls. The five out of debris created walls covering the open architectural structure, filtered light into a very fine grid of white dots. This grid of light did not illuminate the inner space; it did not produce lightened areas, but became part of the re-ordered structuring Teeuwen’s interventions brought about. Light was not used to enable vision but was dealt with as one of the materials that constituted the inner space. The grid of light and stone closing of the openings in the walls, were like a new skin to the house.

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Marjan Teeuwen

On top of a low pile of ordered stones Teeuwen showed the fragmented remains of the bomb that had destroyed the house and killed one of its inhabitants. All other material used by Teeuwen was insignificant as such; the re-use of it evoked the ordering process and activity of memory, but not specific memories. The remains of the bomb, however, distinguished themselves from the other materials, by signifying a specific memory: the moment in the forty-five years history of the building that the house was destroyed by being hit by bombs and grenades. The briefest moment in time definitively modified the spatial structure. The small display of remains of bombs and grenade shards could easily be overlooked because it was much less overwhelming and impressive than the obsessively-structured space in which it was placed. But one could also claim that this modest exhibition, easily overlooked, is the centre of Teeuwen’s Destroyed House, because it is here that memory is not evoked as an ordering, archival process, but in the form of a specific object of memory. It is here, in these traces of that intensely loaded moment, that the location of the Destroyed House Gaza, is inescapably significant.

Destroyed House Gaza �� , ����

Destroyed House Gaza �� , ����

© Marjan Teeuwen

© Marjan Teeuwen

Inkjet print

Inkjet print

By means of her interventions Teeuwen has transformed the bombed, ruined house into an archi-

tectural sculpture, as well as in a site of memory. The term ‘site of memory’ has been introduced

by French historian Pierre Nora.7 These sites are places, objects, or other phenomena which have

become of symbolic significance to a particular group of people when the continuity between past and present is broken. Monuments, memorials, but also specific days of the year during which a specific loss or event is commemorated, can function as sites of memory. Although houses, olive

trees and pine trees already have symbolic significance in Palestine and Israel, this significance is general and not tied to specific houses or trees. Teeuwen’s interventions in Destroyed House Gaza have intensified the symbolical significance of the house and turned it into a site of memory.

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After it was finished in December 2016, people from Gaza visited the house, not just to admire the artistic project and the beauty bestowed onto the ruined house, but also to reflect on and to commemorate the broken bond between their land and their people. The space that a house is, and demarcates, commemorates the time that the bond between land and people was not yet broken; it commemorates the house and the family that was rooted in that house. A destroyed house restores the continuity of time by embodying the force of memory. But how is it possible that the spatial dimension of a ruined house can effectuate the re-establishment of memory of the past, of a dimension that is temporal? This is possible because the bombed house is more than a ruined, artistic architectural construction. The materiality of the spatial ruin already embodies time; the holes and wounds caused by the bomb attack, embody the temporality of trauma. The chaos and damage caused by the bomb attack is not only material damage, but also a temporal havoc. It was an event, a historical moment, which could not be experienced when it happened. The event, literally a bomb attack, was unimaginable, too enormous in its devastating and killing effects, to experience and work through. The traces of that event could be recognized all over the space of the house. 8 They are the symptoms of a failed experience, in other words of trauma. This failed expe-

rience makes it it impossible to remember the events voluntarily. In order to do so, the conditions for memory first had to be developed. This is precisely what Teeuwen’s Destroyed House Gaza has done.

This implies that Teeuwen’s interventions in Destroyed House Gaza did not just transform a discarded space into an artistic statement and an embodiment of memory. Rather, she transformed the temporality of trauma into the temporality of memory. An event that because of its ‘explosive’ nature could not be worked through is transformed into memory by setting up the conditions for commemoration. By transforming chaos into order and transforming a ruin into an architectural sculpture, Teeuwen transforms trauma into memory. That is Teeuwen’s contribution to the restoration of the cultural, social health of a people confined in reiterated traumatogenic situations.

Destroyed House Gaza �� , ���� Inkjet print

© Marjan Teeuwen

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Marjan Teeuwen

1

See for an analysis of the principles that determine archival organisations, my book Staging the Archive: Art and Photography in Times of New

Media. (London: Reaktion books, 2015) 2

Francis A. Yates, The Art of Memory. (Chicago: the University of Chicago Press 1966)

3

See Judith Russi Kirshner:“ The Idea of Community in the Work of Gordon Matta-Clark,” in Gordon Matta-Clark, edited by C. Diserens

(New York: Phaidon, 2003), p.p. 147-160 4

See Carol Bardenstein, “Trees, Forests, and the Shaping of Palestinian and Israeli Collective Memory,” in M.Bal and others (eds.), Acts of

Memory:Cultural Recall in the Present (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1999), p.p.148-168 5

Laura van Gelder, MA thesis, Leiden University (unpublished) 2016

6

Irus Braverman, Planted Flags. Trees, Land and Law in Israeli/Palestine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); “Powers of Illegali-

ty: House Demolitions and Resistance in East Jeruzalem,” Law and Social Inquiry, 32: 2 (2007), p.p.333-372 7 Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.”Representations 26 (1989), p.p.7-24; Realms of Memory: Rethinking the

French Past, Volumes 1-4 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996) 8

For an analysis of trauma, and its relation to memory, sees Ernst van Alphen, “Symptoms of Discursivity: Experience, Memory, and Trauma, in

M. Bal and others (eds.), Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present. (Hanover: University of New England Press, 1999), p.p.24-38; “Caught

By Images,” Art in Mind: How Contemporary Images Shape Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p.p.163-179; Caught By History: Holocaust Effects in Art, Literature, and Theory (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998).

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