Ellen Fernhout
Ellen Fernhout
not a single
moment in life that we can have again. She wanted to share
something that I could carry with me for life, and chose three quotes that she
felt I should take to heart: 'our first duty in all we do, is to pay attention'
and 'there is nothing worse than laziness and tardiness'. The messages
weren't pleasant, but they were crystal clear. But it was the third one that
hit me hardest: 'There isn't a single moment in life, that we can have again'.
That was a terrifying eyeopener. I had been alive for about 252-and-a-half
million seconds. Except, I didn't know that at the time.
I have only known this for
a few days, since I saw Paul Combrink's digital clock that so explicitly places
this exhibition in perspective of how life devours time. That clock shows
Combrink's age to the hundredth of a second. The number of moments that have
passed is growing at breakneck speed. Anyway, I had been
alive for about 252-and-a-half million seconds and not once during one of
those seconds had I realised that it would pass. Realising that this was
in fact what happens, hit me like a bomb. And it couldn't be undone. Before that
time, time did not exist. Afterwards, it couldn't be forgotten. Vasalis
puts it into the following words in her poem 'Time'[1]: How could I not
have known before, Later, I discovered another
quote. Every day when I rode my bike to school, I would pass a sundial, high on
the wall of the technical school. Underneath, the ominous words: 'praetereunt
et imputantur'. They pass and are accounted for. Combrink's clock does
not need that caption. You can't actually read that clock, by the way. The
number is so large and changes so quickly, that it's impossible to read. It's
the ultimate embodiment of that latin text: 'they pass and are accounted for.' This
self-portrait was not made with a mirror, but with a camera This exhibition is called
'self-portrait'. At first glance, the name isn't obvious. Because what is you
see is mostly very abstract: canvasses and photos and many numerical references
to Combrink's age and time in general. But you won't see anything that refers
to his physical appearance. A self-portrait most often
refers to a representation of what the artist sees when they look in the
mirror. This self-portrait was not made with a mirror, but with a camera. Every
day, Paul takes a photo at the same time, wherever he might happen to be, a
picture of what happens to be on his retina at that moment. That is physically
impossible, of course, he can't actually go through his pupils with his camera
to capture what is on his retina, or build a camera into his retina. But he
gets as close as possible and manages to avoid even the smallest suggestion
that it's staged. You wouldn't choose to take
a photo out in the drizzle of cars out the front of Aldi in Scheveningen, with
the depressing shop window of 'Hout van Wout' in the background. And one
wouldn't create a still life of a stack of old papers with a washing-up bowl on
top. It's what has been captured in that moment during one single glance. It is
literally that one moment in life that he's been given, that he can never have
again.
Every
'daily canvas', every 'time landscape' is the story about a story about the
story of a moment In the room above, the
Albert Vogel Room, there are 'time landscapes' and 'daily canvasses'.
Underneath layers of paint are photos. Combrink takes on the role of
Father Time, and does what he does with those moments. He turns them into
memories that grow with us like poems, often leaving no trace at all of the
original moment. When you return twenty years later, it seems that the cute
little town square in front of a church in a French village never even existed.
And you can imagine what happens to those coincidental moments, one of those
moments like out the front of Aldi on a rainy morning. What of that moment
really remains? Every 'daily canvas', every 'time landscape'
is the story about a story about a story, etcetera, of a moment, an anecdote.
In different compositions, those stories make up life, which can be told in
many different ways: in the towers of future expectations, in the rooms of imagination, in series about tone,
about colour, about numbers. Vague notions of the moments they were created
shine through the layers of paint.
The intriguing thing is
this: Through his artificial intervention, Combrink deprives
himself of the possibility to absorb that dreary moment at Aldi into other
experiences and memories. After all, it is recorded and dated. Until recently,
he hid them on his canvasses. And now these photos are on display for all to
see. An immense number shows Paul's age in seconds at the moment the photo was
taken. It's an attempt to capture seeing those moments that will never return,
to hold on to them and give them meaning in time, or in life itself. But he puts that meaning into perspective through
the much larger numbers that are next to it. They indicate the same moment in
time, but according to the Gregorian, the Armenian and the Chinese
calendars. With this clever tactic, he shifts the perspective from our
own lifetime to eternity and from that perspective, our entire lives are just
moments that happen in the blink of an eye. 'I
dreamed that I was living slowly' Written on that wall is the
line: 'I dreamed that I was living slowly'. It is the
first line of the poem 'Time' by Vasalis. Just like Combrink, Vasalis
tried to imagine what it would be like to look at time the way we experience it
from the perspective of eternity. To do that, you have to try to
imagine being a creature that's immortal. But an
immortal creature doesn't really exist. So then perhaps, a stone? Rocks are
associated with being ancient. And rocks have an 'age' in our primitive
experience. And imagine that the experience of life would be the same length
for everyone, we'd have to live for about 80 years. That's really short, if you
compare it to a stone that would take millions of years. In that sense it lives
very slowly, and experiences the most. For that almost unnecessarily
slow-living rock, a day happens in a flash, a year in the blink of an eye. I dreamed that I was living
slowly slower than the oldest stone It was fearful, around me
everything I had known as still, shot up
and shook I saw the urge with which the
trees singing with hoarse and
halting sound were writing upward, out of
the ground the seasons flying, changing
hue and fading fast as rainbows do I saw the tremor of the
sea its welling up, its quick
retreat like swallowing of a giant
throat And night and day of brief
duration flare and die, a flickering
conflagration - The eloquence, the
despairing will in the gestures of the
very things that use to look so rigid,
still, their breathless, their bitter
fight... How could I have known, not
seen it all before in earlier days? How am I ever to forget?* Dreaming that
you're living slowly is quite an adequate way to experience this exhibition.
With its changing perspective between looking at the moment, looking at life,
and looking at eternity and back again. It's an alienating
experience. You can just let it wash over you, and you can ponder it and let it
drive you crazy. And it is wonderful to see how so many objectifying elements
brought together create an absolutely authentic self-portrait. Ellen Fernhout [1] M. Vasalis, From Parkland and Deserts (parken en woestijnen, 1940). Translated bij James Brockway in consultation with the poët. Published by van Oorschot 1940 |