Armin Linke

Marabini Gallery, Bologna
Through April 20

Tireless observer of humanity, renowned for having published a collection of artist portraits Dell’arte nei volti, the monograph about the body, Instant book 1/2/3, and the catalog of images produced in the course of twenty years, Armin Linke 1048, in this exhibition Linke presents, in full at last, one hundred photographs from the cycle “Global Box”, documenting the most colossal and futuristic engineering and architectural works in the world, and the impact they have on the evolution of earth geography. The work, developed during two years of hard work and innumerable trips, is the fruit of a well-developed research involving many fields of knowledge, among which aesthetics, anthropology, and sociology. The primary purpose was to show, through an astonishing but true “Atlas”, the main contributions and installations that are modifying – or are about to modify – the morphology of large areas of our planet and the lives of millions of people. Started in January, 1998 with a report on the construction of an artificial river in Egypt, the artist’s fascinating journey around the globe stopped at many locations in China, among which Ertan, where the second largest dam in the world is being constructed, and Hong Kong, where the new Tsang Kwan district was built. It reached Japan, a country rich in works of daring modernity, such as the new nuclear power plant in Nigata; the Akashi Kaikyo suspended bridge, a true highway built in the middle of the sea for connecting two islands; or the elevated railway, the research laboratories, and the odd leisure centers in Tokyo (worthy of note are the pool with an artificial beach and the indoor ski slope). It also reached Russia (the space training center, Star City ZPK in Moscow), Germany (the gigantic transport vehicle, Beluga Airbus Transporter, utilized in Berlin), Brazil (Brasilia’s utopian architecture, the urban road network in San Paolo; some monuments in Rio de Janeiro), Chile (where, in the Atacama desert, the Very Large Telescope for the observation of celestial phenomena is installed), and the United States (Pasadena Space Center; the huge hotel complexes in Las Vegas). The common denominator of all these images is man’s will to conquer nature. And it is just this “show of strength”, Armin Linke suggests, the main cause of the transformation of the landscape and environment we live in. However, his critique is not general, motivated by environmental concerns. On the contrary, it is an analytical “mapping”, in certain ways scientific, of present reality. The suspension of moral judgement, wanted by the author, allows each viewer the freedom to judge by him or herself the content of the images. By doing so, Linke takes his own responsibilities and at the same time avoids assuming a role that does not fit him.




Stefano Gualdi
Translation by Bruna Pegoraro Brylawski