Deathgate

31 In some countries there is an even more frightening rise of the far-right, the hate oriented domestic terrorists who target ethnic and religious groups and whose precursors include Franco in Spain, Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Pinochet in Chile, the Romanian Communist “führer,” Ceau ş escu, and the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. Dan Elborne’s modus operandi: his incorporation of ‘process’ in his work and the use of multiples are significant and provide a solid framework for his concepts. ‘Process’ implies the actual production of a work through applied technique and choice of material to create a fitting outcome for arts based research. It is has been suggested that process and artistic expression offer the means to investigate subjects that resist description and representation through other modes of inquiry, a point that resonates with Elborne’s project. 3 The use of the ‘multiple’ is about emphasis: making a point again and again. It is obsessive, repetitive. It is about the one and the many. The individual and the collective. It is steeped in symbolism and metaphor. Think of Christian Boltanski’s piles of clothing, ostensibly those from Holocaust victims. Fading mounds smelling like mouldy closets and second hand clothing shops. Or the pile of wrapped candies assembled by Félix González- Torres, or Antony Gormley’s army of little earthen ware people. The pieces are objects as individual units... tiny mementos...but collectively they make a statement that carries a message of greater import...the sheer volume adds to the impact and gives gravity to the moment. As a ceramicist, Elborne’s choice of material was a given. Clay has many associations. It is of the earth and carries an ‘ashes to ashes dust to dust’ connotation. It has a prosaic ‘feet of clay’ association with human foibles, imperfections, and the ordinariness of the everyday. As a malleable material it welcomes the human touch, the moulding of a form in which a deliberate imprint or a subtle trace of the artist’s hand acts as an elusive presence of the artist as creator, witness, and collaborator. Once fired the ceramic object assumes both fragility and resilience which could be read as metaphors for human vulnerability and strength. So...can art change the world? Can one person make a difference? These are questions of moral philosophy. Yet although artworks, especially those made as memorials or in the spirit of memorialisation, may not change society’s moral turpitude or even its complacency, they do have the potential to encourage people to re-assess their attitudes, perceptions, and opinions: how they think about the world. This continues to happen with the on-going Stolpersteine project initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992. The “stumbling stones,” are paver sized concrete blocks carrying brass plaques that are engraved with the name and life dates of victims of the Holocaust. They are inserted flush with the road or pavement at the individual’s last known residence or work place and are intended to metaphorically trip the passerby and draw their attention to the small memorial. Stolpersteine can be found all over Germany and on 23 October 2018 the 70,000th Stolperstein was laid in Frankfurt commemorating the life of Willy Zimmerer. 4 Continued overleaf REMEMBER