An Introduction to L'Aquila, Empty City
2014
Essay
(…) To walk the streets of L’Aquila is to be constantly faced with the impossibility of synchronizing the temporality of a human being with the surrounding non-temporality. Instead of offering a complementary experience between the person and his or her town, the encounter between a human being and this city creates rupture, incoherence and absence of meaning. The city is no longer a part of things. The inhabitants have become outhabitants. (…) (Veit Stratmann)
Veit Stratmann
Veit Stratmann, born 1960, is a German contemporary artist, based in Paris. He teaches at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts de Lyon, France. His work – often conceived for public spaces – revolves around questions such as: Can an artistic gesture be based on the notions of choice and decision? Can decision-making and the infinite suspension of time involved in doing so become a constructive material? If political action originates in the act of decision-making, can an encounter with art generate a permanent oscillation between political and artistic gestures? Recent solo show: MODULE/ESSEN, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany in 2019.