Abraham David Christian – One Thing at a Time – curated by Richard Milazzo

Galerie Albrecht is proud to present the exhibition “One Thing at a Time: Drawings and Sculptures by Abraham David Christian”, curated by Richard Milazzo.

The gallery is also proud to publish on this occasion the book by Richard Milazzo: “One Thing at a Time: Poems of Japan”, 2016, with the suite of 30 drawings (三十 [san jû]) made by Abraham David Christian in Japan for the book and presented in the exhibition. Signed copies by the author and the artist will be available at the gallery.

In the Preface of the book, Richard Milazzo writes:
“Most of the poems (excepting two) in “One Thing at a Time” were written during a recent trip to Japan, in February and March of 2016. In the poems about Hiroshima, I felt sure indirection was the only possible approach. The hope is that the sincerity of my intentions will carry me and that no part of my life-long-shock will be misconstrued. (In my own addled brain, one of the sculptures even reminded me, in the context of this presentation, of that fateful day in August 1945. I will not tell you which sculpture. I am sure Abraham David Christian would be horrified by this association, and consider it entirely irrelevant.) As for the rest, we can clearly see at work here (in these poems) history rooted in the most visceral of ontological predications, where it is not simply symptomatic of an erotics of retrospection. When this author gazes up at the burgeoning fruition of the plum or cherry blossom tree, he sees only an overwhelming population, a fleeting consort and delicate conceit, of erotic thresholds. Clearly, he is dizzy with the pollen of existential spring, even as the thought of everlasting devastation and winter can never leave him, both by nature and circumstance. The ‘blossom’ here is simultaneously jejune and apocalyptic.

“In its simplicity and sincerity, the title (which I borrowed from the artist), “One Thing at a Time”, and, by implication, the book, wants to describe experiences that I imagine were not dissimilar to those of the great seventeenth-century Edo period poet, Matsuo Basho, when it is said, perhaps somewhat apocryphally, he lived in a small house or hut in the northeastern hills of Kyoto Prefecture. Because this title (and the concept behind it) embodied the spirit of his work as an artist, I invited Abraham David Christian, who has, for as long as I can remember, lived part of the year in Japan, as well Dusseldorf and New York City, to do the abstract or analogical drawings, some even exquisitely and daringly illustrative, for this book of poems. Although I have never visited David’s small cottage in Hayama, pictures of it are evocative of Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond, and Basho’s modest dwelling (Basho-an) in the northeast hills of Kyoto.

“In the course of preparing the exhibition, the publisher-gallerist, Susanne Albrecht, in Berlin, wrote: ‘There is a vivid relationship between the drawings and the poems. The drawings could be images that reflect the meaning of the poems and they could be read as characters of an archaic language, thus giving the poetry the atmosphere of an oracle, of words and wisdom from a very old time. Now you have not only time, but also space in the book’.

In this world of Pop culture, where the American ethos has unfortunately become a global reality, it was not that I wasn’t tempted to use as the books title, “Apocalypse and Love” or “Girls Giggling Beneath the A-Bomb Dome”. The former, because it made an ever so subtle allusion to Alain Resnais’s great film, “Hiroshima Mon Amour” (1959); the latter, to distance myself, in a Brechtian manner, from a topic still too painful to address directly – the former (title) obviously being ultimately too facetious and lacking sufficient gravitas, at least for me. The common idiom, ‘One Thing at a Time’, on the other hand, while facile to an extreme, catches at something that goes against the very grain of our Age of multi-tasking and social media. In the end, for me, it captures the ‘space between our thoughts’; it is about slowing things down long enough to actually experience them, if only in parts or as a partial reality.”

Gallery hours Tues-Fri 11 am 6 pm, Sat 11 am – 4 pm

Die Galerie Albrecht freut sich, die Ausstellung “One Thing at a Time: Zeichnungen und Skulpturen von Abraham David Christian, kuratiert von Richard Milazzo” ankündigen zu können. Sie freut sich, anlässlich der Aussstellung das Buch von Richard Milazzo “One Thing at a Time: Poems of Japan 2016”, mit der Serie von 30 Zeichnungen (三十 [san jû]) von Abraham David Christian herauszugeben. Die Zeichnungen werden in der Ausstellung gezeigt. Je vom Künstler und vom Autor signierte Exemplare des Buchs sind in der Galerie Albrecht erhältlich.

Im Vorwort seines Buchs schreibt Richard Milazzo:
“Bis auf zwei Ausnahmen habe ich die Gedichte in “One Thing at a Time” während meiner letzten Reise nach Japan im Februar und März 2016 geschrieben.

“Weil der Titel (und das dahinter liegende Konzept) den Geist seiner künstlerischen Arbeit verkörpert, lud ich Abraham David Christian ein, für dieses Buch einen Beitrag zu leisten. Es entstanden abstrakte und den Gedichten entsprechende Zeichnungen, von denen einige sogar feinfühlig und kühn das Gesagte illustrieren.”

“In der Phase der Ausstellungsvorbereitung schrieb die Galeristin und Herausgeberin Susanne Albrecht: ‘Es gibt eine lebendige Beziehung zwischen den Zeichnungen und den Gedichten. Die Zeichnungen könnten Bilder sein, die den Inhalt der Gedichte wiederspiegeln und sie könnten als Schriftzeichen einer archaischen Sprache gelesen werden, die den Gedichten die Aura eines Orakels geben: von Worten und Weisheiten aus einer lange vergangenen Zeit. Nun hast Du nicht nur Zeit, sondern auch Raum in Deinem Buch.’”

“In der Welt der Popkultur, die den amerikaniscnen Ethos leider zu einer globalen Realität gemacht hat, geriet ich durchaus in Versuchung, den Titel “Apocalypse and Love” oder “Girls Giggling Beneath the A-Bomb-Dome” zu wählen. Den ersten, weil er eine, wenn auch nur zarte Anspielung auf Alain Resnais großartigen Film “Hiroshima, mon amour” (1959) darstellt, den zweiten, um mich in brechtscher Weise von einem Thema zu distanzieren, das immer noch zu schmerzvoll ist, um es direkt auszusprechen.”

“Das geläufige Idiom “One Thing at a Time” – “Eins nach dem Anderen” andererseits, indem es bis zum Extrem vereinfacht, berührt etwas, das unserem Zeitalter des Multi-Tasking und der Sozialen Medien entgegenläuft. Es hält, in meinen Augen, letztendlich den Raum zwischen unseren Gedanken fest. Es geht darum, die Dinge so zu verlangsamen, bis wir sie wirklich erfahren, wenn auch nur in Teilen oder als Teil-Realität.”

Öffnungszeiten Di-Fr 11 – 18 Uhr, Sa 11 – 16 Uhr

www.galeriesusannealbrecht.de

Location:
Galerie Albrecht
Charlottenstrasse 78
10117 Berlin
Germany