M HKA Ensembles

Installation

Collection: Courtesy of DT Projects Brussels, Lombard-Freid Projects New York, Andreiana Mihail Gallery Bucharest.

Appointment with History consists of a series of smaller scale paintings that depict recent and historical protests involving crowds on the street. Painted in the style of 19th century landscape painting, with nods to later traditions of realism, the work draws together different moments of public revolt, from demonstrations in Berlin in 1989 and anti-globalism protests in Genoa to the Syrian protests that began in 2011. A reading of the Communist Manifesto becomes a dominant background sound, but the paintings are also set in an ambience with empty chairs and a vacant lectern that invites the audience to act out political speech against these backdrops and thereby intervene in the present historical moment.