## STIMULATING RUINS - CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS' RESPONSES TO DECAY

CONTEMPORARY RUINS / RUINEN DER GEGENWART EDITED BY JULIA SCHLEIS, JULIA HÖNER, LUDWIG SEYFARTH, AND ANDREAS FIEDLER

BIELEFELD: KERBER VERLAG, 2017. 104 PAGES. ISBN 978-3-7356-0415-6

Romantic  views  of  gradually  dilapidated  classical  temples, sorrowful visions of sudden destructions caused by earthquakes and tsunamis, critically melancholic renderings of the scenery with fragmented architecture of run-down malls and unused factories, terrifying depictions of war wreckage partially covering distorted human bodies... Ruins follow us - they regularly appear on our news screens, making it impossible to escape facing the fact of continuous destruction happening today all around the globe. At the same time, though, the ruin-interest or 'ruinlust' is very high nowadays. Besides the intensive media coverage, many books as well as thematic issues of journals and magazines aim to analyse various aspects of decay. Special art projects, photo series and thematic exhibitions - including the one of which accompanying book is reviewed here - display artistic responses to the convoluted set of questions connected to ruination. Numerous visitors queue up not only to enjoy the ancient archaeological sites, but also to discover relatively recent, few decades old, constructions that start to fall into decay, in order to observe their initial decay, before they are either torn down or saved through restoration or financeoriented and gentrified modernisation.

It  is  fashionable  to  explain  this  fashion,  and  to  justify  the current interest in ruins and decay with the insecurity in the world today. Social and political tensions, especially their tragic result and  aftermath,  can  easily  be  symbolised  by  ruins  -  hence  the increased interest in derelict edifices may also indicate the general and high state of worry in many of us. In the Preface - written by Monika Schnetkamp and Andreas Fiedler - of the present volume we can even read: 'It is said that in times of change, artists tend to turn their attention to the motif of the ruin. It therefore comes as  no  surprise  that  the  ruin  fantasies  of  European  artists  have quite often been inspired by political incidents.' (p. 6), after which the  authors draw a parallel between the French Revolution and Hubert Robert's paintings, as well as the political turmoil of the globalised  present,  and  the  massive  load  of  various  ruins  and their renderings. Fortunately, however, neither Schnetkamp and Fiedler, nor the other authors in the book, simplify the issue to this singular aspect. They are aware of the temporality as well as the temporally changing reasons of the ruin-interest. Exactly because the ruin as object, phenomenon, and symbol is so complex, every period found aspects and ways of reading it that made decaying constructions both intellectually and aesthetically fascinating. As known, already in Antiquity, ruins served as poignant reminders of  the  fading  of  even  the  best  men's  achievements.  During  the Renaissance's rediscovery of ancient cultures, ruins often became open-air source books for research and better understanding of antique architectural and aesthetic principles. In the 18th century, the purpose of ruins in landscape gardens - both original and artificial or fake ones - was to provide a picturesque background element in the scenery, but from their auxiliary role they soon turned to be protagonists in Romanticism: The often dramatic depictions of crumbling constructions did not only serve the increasing sense of belonging and of national identity, but also provided striking visual materials for aesthetic and critical reflections on the transiency of life.  After this, perhaps not surprisingly, in the future-obsessed Modernism, the investigation and incorporation of ruins sometimes played an important role in architectural discourse and practice, while obviously in Postmodernism, they continued to radiate their symbolic and aesthetic energy with full capacity.

The bilingual volume in question - titled Contemporary Ruins / Ruinen der Gegenwart - was published on the occasion of a double exhibition bearing the same title, on view throughout summer and winter of 2017-2018 in KAI10 Arthena Foundation in Düsseldorf and KINDL Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin. The selection focused  on  the  productions  of  ten  artists:  Dorothee  Albrecht, Morehshin Allahyari, Francis Alÿs, Katya Gardea Browne, Clemens Botho  Goldbach,  Arata  Isozaki,  Gordon  Matta-Clark,  Ryuji Miyamoto, Marike Schuurman, and Manit Sriwanichpoom, hence creators  from  the  last  half  century,  though  a  dominant  part  of the artworks comes from the recent years. Among the pieces we can find a wide array of approaches that efficiently prove that, in the contemporary art production, ruins can be interpreted just as broadly as throughout their entire reception history so far.

The  selection  of  works  inspired  by  ruination  and  decay  thus includes pieces that depart from 'classical ruins', in the double sense, i.e. they show the well-known classical Graeco-Roman and Middle Eastern sites, and classical also because their ruination is caused by the 'classical' reason of the simple passing of a large amount of time that provides the time-frame for natural elements to  slowly  erode  the  edifice.  Apart  from  this  natural  ruination, however, other artists in the exhibitions were focusing on edifices of cities suddenly ruined by either Nature - through earthquakes, tsunamis,  hurricanes  etc.  -  or  by  human  aggression,  including war bombings, terror attacks, or intentional violent eradication of material forms of cultural history. Another group of works critically analysed the ruins of unfinished buildings: those constructions that stand as reversed monuments, as dilapidated warning signs of the investment boom, and that, at the arrival of the financial crisis, were thus left abandoned.

A  further  crucial  and  currently  extremely  relevant  question that is analysed both in the introductory essays and throughout some of the works is related to the relationship of the ruin and the human body. As Julia Höner writes: 'Bodies and ruins belong together. Not only is the body like «a ruin in progress» - being preprogrammed for decomposition - but both the body and the ruin are also comparable when one applies concepts from architecture and psychology.' (p. 23). This again proves that the contemporary ruininterest is not 'simply' aesthetically and (art) historically driven but connects us to questions of our own existence and prospects, on a personal as well as collective level.

Therefore,  given  the  many  different  approaches  to  decay, at  the  end  this  volume  is  not  (only)  a  catalogue  documenting and  highlighting  the  works  exhibited  on  the  previous  shows, but more than that: a summary of the current issues of ruination and  intentional  ruining,  of  deleting  and  disappearing.  Those interested  in  any  of  these  phenomena  and  their  appearance  in contemporary art can read the book as a concise survey. After the  two  introductory  essays  ( 'Contemporary Ruins' by  Ludwig Seyfarth and the aforementioned 'Bodies in Ruin' by Julia Höner) ten mini-essays follow, written by different authors, analysing the art pieces of the exhibitors, and often contextualising them in the larger oeuvre of the artist. This naturally results in dissimilar types of texts, some focusing more on a unique group of works, while others trying to provide the reader with an overall understanding of  the  artists'  approaches,  methods,  and  ideas.  And,  just  like throughout  the  whole  book,  sometimes  even  on  the  singular artist's level, the polyvalent questions and perspectives of ruination can be synthesised. For example, in Thomas Burlon's essay on Arata Isozaki, the examination of the Japanese architect's work includes  references  ranging  from  Albert  Speer's  theory  on  the 'Ruinenwert'  (Ruin  value)  to  Robert  Smithson's  concept  of  the 'Ruins in Reverse'. Besides the references mentioned in Burlon's text, another automatically comes to one's mind. Given the nature of  Isozaki's  pieces,  i.e.  rendering  his  own  design  plans  for  the Tsukuba Centre in the form of ruins, one can easily think of Hubert Robert's well-known Louvre series too, that are also mentioned in other essays in the book. This is just one example of how the widespanning survey of the classical viewpoints, modern topics, and contemporary approaches are inspiringly interwoven - just like in the case of the actual ruins themselves, where, as it often happens, the multiple temporal layers embedded in the history of the (former) building glue the crumbling, although still aesthetically valuable, construction together.

Zoltán Somhegyi