voyage to blue

(2025)

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If there were the sound of water only

Not the cicada

And dry grass singing

But sound of water over a rock

Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees

Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop

But there is no water.

 

(T.S.Eliot, The Waste Land, 1922)

 

If there is no water, all that is left must be what has disappeared (?).

 

The first blue voyage took us to the Mediterranean Sea, to the shores of Tel Aviv. The residues of oil swim on the water. The water holds up that which doesn't belong to it. The cans are flattened and sanded then tied together to form a receptive surface. Held to touch only the surface of the water, the cans sweep up residues: the oil, the fat, the sunscreen. To the immediate eye, there is nothing.

At the studio, we activate the sea-lithography with talcum, citric acid and a gum arabic solution. Inking reveals the material floating on top of water.

 

Printed and rearranged, the sea comes back together on paper. The fat had captured the waves; the movement is stuck in the oil.

 

Returned to dry land, a puddle emerges from the paper; and we watch the waves on sand.

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With support from Philipp Riedel and Judith Göppinger