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The other time in the first?
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Impressions of the Double Portraits by Gerd Hasler
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The time and place of the other time already at work, altering from the start the start itself, the first time, the at once. Such are the vices that interest me: the other time in (stead of) the first, at once. |
Jacques Derrida |
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While viewing Gerd Hasler's pictures the gaze ist lost again and again in the undecidable. Definite identifications of something as something are foiled by the same token as a clear sorting within contextual relationships fails. Any identificatory acces to the Waterscapes is subverted, since it is unclear, whether it is a matter of macro- or micro-pictures; in the same way the gaze struggles to find a foothold in the monochromes, since the question of what is to be seen remains unsettled in a disconcerting way. Even the question, whether it is a painting or a photograph, cannot be answered by the challenged and overstrained gaze. Hasler's pictures do not merely force the viewer to see something different, but evoke a peculiar kind of patience in learning to see differently by means of repeated examinations. A patience, of course, which is less accompanied by a satisfying contemplation but rather by a constant agitation. Therefore the function to depict realities seamlessly can no more be assigned to images; for all images - even photographs - are not merely expressing a reduplication of the depicted, but a mode of depicting, in which something else surfaces and the unforseeable opens up.
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| This confusion now returns in an intensified way with the Double Portraits. Even though it becomes obvious that someone is to be seen, at once a certain discomfort manifests itself, which cannot simply be cast off again. The portrait is commonly assumed to be the artistic form of expression, which is capable of disclosing the essence of the person or persons depicted. Very much like the Latin root of the term pro-trahere as "to drag" or "pull-out" suggests. The actual inmost of a person is supposedly turned outwards to be perceived by the beholder. The exposedness of the portrayed subject is thus being displayed. It is precisely this exhibitionism, which is subversively undermined by Hasler: entirely focused on the oversized face, which confronts the viewer, everything else is lost in the dark. However, the uniquenessof a particular person, enhanced by the reduction of the real nuances of colour and brightness to a classic black and white spectrum, is not even at the first glance revealed. The putatively condensed singularity is exposed to an uncanny doubling. Are these pictures identical or alike? Gradually, the uneasy feeling emerges that the two pictures are at the same time one, even though they cannot be added up, since there is no comforting symmetry. Each image is simultaneously constituted and split in the instant of viewing, by means of a duplication of which is presented as singular. Similar to spot-the-difference pictures, the gaze aims to find the differences in order to establish connections by means of comparison - an endeavour that fails, for the rupture cannot be appeased . Precisely because no distinction between the two portraits can be made nor be accounted for, the inherent difference is paradoxically increased. |
| Is the same repeated or is the same shown indiscriminately? A repetition, however inconspicious it might be, always repeats differently. For, exactly one and the same can never occur anew. Even if the same content is repeated in every respect, the situation, the context, the addressing or at least the time would nevertheless not be entirely identical with the antecedent. Each reiteration as a re-iteration is therefore necessarily always already pervaded by alterity. But, are the Double Portraits reiterations as such? |
| Hasler's portraits create precisely this aporia, since the gaze cannot cope with these excessive demands. Is the singular identity of the sitters strengthened or weakened by this repetition? Can it be finally decided whether the uniqueness of the person in question is depicted doubly reinforced by a repeated bringing-forth, or if the doubling contradicts the singular essence in a peculiar way, so that the duplication of the portrayed suddenly becomes less? Where does this reduplication of identity lead the respective self? These questions are what the pictures leave us with. |
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Matthias Flatscher |
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