Anat Litwin, Black Forest and Champagne / Mount Carmel is burning, Installation, 2011
Anat Litwin
Installation
The Black Forest – an unknown territory of wild life, beauty, transcendence, mystery and desire. As an archetype of paradise lost or found – A place where one can glimpse at the marvels of nature, at the pitfalls of self, at a party of nymphs and sprites all running around naked.
The Black Forest (Schwarzwald) – a dense mountain range set in southwestern Germany with its iconic imagery of fortifying pines in the Winter covered in white.
The Black Forest – a nightmare, a site of crime, a place of exile. Trees filled with partisans, refugees of genocide – mankind’s darkest night looming.
The Black Forest – Mount Carmel my home town, Haifa, charcoaled after a four-day fire. The blaze consumed the lives of 44 people, burning more than 4 million trees which were planted several decades ago by Zionists who dreamed of re-creating a new green homeland. Mount Carmel – according to The Bible a sacred place where prophet Elija built an altar and asking God to send down a sign in the form of fire.
The Black Forest – a baked cake – layers of rich chocolate and cherry liquor, served to the sound of clinging champagne glasses served in private homes of the elites. The decadence of a good life, the indulgence of celebration, the silky smoothness of sugar and cream, ensconced in the bourgeois Berlin cultural scene.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Bringing home an inverted, Black Forest as a juxtaposition of nature and culture, of wild life and domesticity, a phantom of the past and an acuity towards the future. The white branches, like trophies or ghosts penetrating the space, are like haunting reminders of burned bonds to the past – the shedding of longing and unfulfilled desire.
In this room, an in-between space linking my two ‘hometowns,’ Haifa and Berlin, I am both a witness and performer of a processes of galvanization echoing a reconciled, a semi sober version of Eden behind closed doors.
