Shy Abady’s new series of paintings engages with the figure of The Angel of History in Walter Benjamin’s foundational text “Theses on the Philosophy of History”.
Abady introduces his characters by first name, with easy familiarity: Walter (Benjamin), Hannah (Arendt), Paul (Celan), Yaakov (Shabtai), Kochava (Levi), Gal (Gadot). The last names, enclosed in parentheses, are a telling reminder of the complex, often conflicted, even tragic, life stories of most of them.
The cultural heroes summoned by Abady to Israel’s present are seasoned witnesses. The white background makes them seem fixed in place, unable to avert their gaze – just like Walter Benjamin’s angel of history in the essay composed shortly before his tragic death. This angel appears in Paul Klee’s painting Angelus Novus (1920); Benjamin interpreted the angel as contemplating history’s horrors while reflecting on the purpose of human existence.
The thinkers portrayed in this exhibition were preoccupied with these same issues, as they examined collective memory and the fragility of human institutions. They explored the profound effects of the Holocaust and the vicissitudes of the 20th century in writings illuminating the moral imperative to grapple with the implications of the past.
By contrast, Gadot’s image offers a possible escape from the experience of disaster and extinction. Yet, despite the fantasy that one can extricate oneself from a tragic fate and bring succor, Gadot/Wonder-Woman’s face too is likewise singed, blackened, scorched.
The inclusion of Levi and Gadot broadens the cultural field to encompass international aspirations as well as ethnic- and gender-related disenfranchisement. Levi was held hostage in the Savoy Hotel terror attack; despite exhibiting extraordinary courage and presence of mind, she was never properly acknowledged by Israeli society and became socially marginalized.
The artworks featured here were drawn and etched on OSB boards, on a distinctive light background, with a continuous red line that seems to connect them all. This red line stretching across the paintings is perhaps yet another reminder of the political events that took place in Israel 2023, which traced a borderline that is dangerous to cross.
The exhibition title A Boomerang on Breathroutes derives from the opening line of a poem by Paul Celan. Abady and his portrayed characters engage with catastrophe, their thoughts uneasy. Like a boomerang, lurking catastrophe comes back again to give pain. The poem continues: “a heartbeat, a millennium long / To stop ...” (transl. from German by P. Joris).
The exhibition is thus the heartbeat of the heroes and of silenced landscapes.
The exhibition's opening was originally scheduled for fall 2023, but due to the horrific events of October 7 is taking place only now, as spring approaches. Hence, Walter Benjamin’s description of Klee’s angel of history is today more timely than ever: His face is turned toward the past ... he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.
Indeed, catastrophes continue to pile up.
In the aftermath of October 7, Abady created a new artwork entitled “Baskerville”. This painting differs from the other exhibited works in the artist’s surprising palette, contrasting sharply with the monochromatic paintings. The red line is here replaced by two black lines, like the funereal border of an obituary notice. The dog, painted around with bold brushstrokes, seems to represent the chaos and failures of October 7. At the same time, the association with Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Hound of the Baskervilles conveys potential for hope of debunking old myths and embarking on a new path, so acutely needed at this time.