Rafik Greiss – 'The City and the City'

In his artistic practice, which encompasses both digital and analogue techniques, Greiss explores transformation, memory and the changing states of images and objects.

‘The City and the City’ is Greiss’s first institutional solo exhibition.

The focus is on his newly commissioned film of the same name, which follows enigmatic figures through vast desert landscapes. They keep a lookout and wait for something that apparently has yet to happen. In the face of an event that may never occur, time stretches out, and the seemingly empty scenery is charged with anticipation.

The protagonists’ waiting becomes a kind of labour – repetitive, tedious and endless. The film’s soundtrack, composed by the musician 7038634357, acoustically conveys the film’s atmosphere into the exhibition space.

Greiss also presents a series of black-and-white photographs depicting artefacts, objects and abandoned spaces. Removed from their original context, these become fragments of places and events that can no longer be fully reconstructed.

By refusing to assign any geographical or historical context, Greiss shifts the focus from interpretation to experience. He leaves it up to us to decide how we wish to understand the images. In the artist’s work, memory always hovers on the fringes of consciousness. It is shaped by what has been seen and is now only remembered in fragments, and exists in limbo between personal perception and collective history.

“One does not remember, but rather rewrites memory, just as one rewrites history. How could one possibly remember thirst?”

– Chris Marker