10^a MOSTRA [5^o INTERSTIZIO] maggio - giugno 2010

Hinterlands and the Hegemon

An interstizio exhibit

Fervidly disquiet, indistinct visions of histories decadent, horizons distant.
Apotheoses of severance, forces, depths, instants.
Dashed angels aloft in the wind of ruin.
Egressive tumult in periled glow.

Featuring works by Brock Enright, Andy Piedilato, Tim Kent, Oliver Jones and Nat Ward.
Opening reception: Friday, 21 May 2010, 6-10pm.

To place the titular hinterlands and the above-referenced dashed angels into their proper context, please note the following:

In Thesis IX of Walter Benjamin’s "Theses on the Philosophy of History," in Illuminations, one finds the following ekphrasis of Angelus Novus, a watercolor by Paul Klee:

"His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."

To visually contextualize the titular hegemon and its circumstantial hinterlands of ruinous progress, consult the images below.