Beautiful Days End Tomorrow: Schöne Zeit - Exhibition Text Julie M. Gallery, Tel Aviv, 2010.
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Morgen ist es nun soweit
Daß vorbei die schöne Zeit… |
"The beautiful days end tomorrow. The traveler must continue his journey, home to Berlin.
All good things must end — if only I could find the words to say how beautiful it was…"
Yours, Albert Oberstack, SS11, July 1943
All good things must end — if only I could find the words to say how beautiful it was…"
Yours, Albert Oberstack, SS11, July 1943
These words were written in verse in the guest book of Rudolf Höss, commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who lived with his family in a villa next to the camp. Höss frequently hosted friends in his home, and his guests left behind their thoughts and words of thanks for the warm hospitality. Most tended towards saccharine nostalgia and clichés.
Michal Rubens uses "the beautiful days" as a criterion in her selection process: For one person the beautiful days are still beautiful, for another they will end tomorrow, and for others these days are far away; perhaps they never even existed. It seems that the beautiful days end as soon as they begin, and that they are always threatening to end; this thought puts a smile on one's face. Nostalgia for the present, distant memories, past and future, story fragments from the artist's life and from the lives of others are embedded into the canvas and can no longer be distinguished from one another.
Like a dripping lemon popsicle, or children smiling at the camera during a summer vacation with their parents, in photos at Yad Vashem. Janusz is hugging everyone, and the day is about to end. It was beautiful.
Like a pile-up with a kid on top of Mom on top of Dad. A smiling, wealthy family that left behind 42 photos and a reminder of a little mustache that used to be in fashion.
The paintings in the exhibition create a world made up of reality and imagination, fantasy, nightmares and fears, personal biography, history, trauma, fragments of ideology and humor. On the surface, the paintings appear wounded and dynamic. Each painting is volatile, regardless of whether it portrays a family, a landscape, or parts of the kibbutz where Rubens grew up. Although the paintings attempt to conceal the evidence, each is charged and foreshadows an approaching catastrophe. Small deviations enable the paintings to lightly touch on painful spots or to arouse curiosity, to evoke pleasure or laughter, to flirt with evil and with inner urges.
An obedient dog that once killed humans, a childhood view of a desert that looks like snow, an abandoned building, babies falling apart and two girls with transparent eyes—these images come together and create a space with an internal logic of its own, in which a multitude of narratives can coexist.
Red spots recur in the paintings, decorating, seducing, bleeding, and stitching together pretty little plots. It seems that at any moment the black truck will set off on a special mission. The power shovels are ready to sink their talons in. They will dig holes or empty them. Another smile.
Michal Rubens uses "the beautiful days" as a criterion in her selection process: For one person the beautiful days are still beautiful, for another they will end tomorrow, and for others these days are far away; perhaps they never even existed. It seems that the beautiful days end as soon as they begin, and that they are always threatening to end; this thought puts a smile on one's face. Nostalgia for the present, distant memories, past and future, story fragments from the artist's life and from the lives of others are embedded into the canvas and can no longer be distinguished from one another.
Like a dripping lemon popsicle, or children smiling at the camera during a summer vacation with their parents, in photos at Yad Vashem. Janusz is hugging everyone, and the day is about to end. It was beautiful.
Like a pile-up with a kid on top of Mom on top of Dad. A smiling, wealthy family that left behind 42 photos and a reminder of a little mustache that used to be in fashion.
The paintings in the exhibition create a world made up of reality and imagination, fantasy, nightmares and fears, personal biography, history, trauma, fragments of ideology and humor. On the surface, the paintings appear wounded and dynamic. Each painting is volatile, regardless of whether it portrays a family, a landscape, or parts of the kibbutz where Rubens grew up. Although the paintings attempt to conceal the evidence, each is charged and foreshadows an approaching catastrophe. Small deviations enable the paintings to lightly touch on painful spots or to arouse curiosity, to evoke pleasure or laughter, to flirt with evil and with inner urges.
An obedient dog that once killed humans, a childhood view of a desert that looks like snow, an abandoned building, babies falling apart and two girls with transparent eyes—these images come together and create a space with an internal logic of its own, in which a multitude of narratives can coexist.
Red spots recur in the paintings, decorating, seducing, bleeding, and stitching together pretty little plots. It seems that at any moment the black truck will set off on a special mission. The power shovels are ready to sink their talons in. They will dig holes or empty them. Another smile.