Exhibition

H.aven by Mateusz Choróbski (Radomsko, 1987) introduces the artist’s wider research project and, by playing a series of word games, refers directly to the Dr. Éva Kahán Foundation and its history. This shows how words can quickly change meaning, opening up different ways in which the works and the space they are in can be read and understood. The exhibition is, indeed, full of interpretative nuances, reflecting how the Foundation has itself already gone through a series of phases in its short history.

H.aven, without a period after the letter “h”, can be understood literally as a “Haven” (a port), a physical refuge on the water, a landing place where you can find comfort and shelter after a journey. By inserting an “e” in place of the period it becomes “Heaven” (a paradise), the primordial space that was, according to the Book of Genesis, home to the first human beings (Adam and Eve), or that place, celestial or terrestrial, destined for all those who have been deemed “righteous” by traditional Christian teachings based on the interpretation of these Biblical texts. 

By deleting the initial “H” H.aven becomes “Aven”, which is, as Choróbski notes, “a unique and versatile name with a rich history and multiple meanings. Its origins can be traced back to both the Irish and Hebrew languages. In Irish, Aven comes from the name Aoibheann, which translates to ‘beautiful and pleasant’. The other meaning in Irish is ‘fair splendor’. Aven is also a biblical name mentioned in the Old Testament, conveying the meaning of ‘iniquity’ and ‘sorrow’ in Hebrew (…) The etymology from Proto-Brythonic is ‘river’ but the term can also be interpreted as ‘hole’ or ‘vertical well leading upwards from a cave’ (...) that is, something the opposite of Heaven which also grammatically refers to Aven.”

Playing on the double declension Haven / Heaven, Choróbski develops a project that pays homage to French-born Jewish-Romanian poet Paul Celan (Cernauți, 1920–Paris, 1970). According to the artist, “all his life he searched in vain for his place on earth and returned to reflect in his poems on a life that had been irretrievably lost”. Having first escaped deportation, and almost certain death, by the Nazis, who murdered both his parents, and then the persecutions of the communist regime, he travelled throughout Europe before finding a definite place of refuge in Paris. Here, afflicted by mental disorders, he took his own life in 1970 by throwing himself into the Seine.

His collection Von Schwelle zu Schwelle dates to the early 1950s, shortly after his famous Todesfuge (1948), and focuses on the concept of “threshold”, a liminal condition like family, home, place of origin, or a temple of memory, that precedes the space in which personal or cultural identities are formed. In both Jewish tradition and the mind of the artist, this symbolises guardianship over moral and civil, personal and collective values. It is also expressed Celan’s verse “I still go in front of the house, I look for water in the sand”.

Inspired by this idea, Choróbski connects it to the site of the Éva Kahán Foundation in Vienna’s Karmeliterviertel, once an area inhabited by the Jewish community largely destroyed in the Holocaust. Located north of the historic city of Vienna, on the Danube Island Unterer Werd, in the 14th century the neighbourhood began to be populated as it became easily accessible thanks to the construction of a bridge.

These diverse historical and cultural meanings, fused with Celan’s personal and professional experience, constitutes the narrative basis of Choróbski’s project. As is usual for his practice, he starts by observing the surrounding context, translating it into works using a complex variety of artistic and linguistic systems: plastic, video, performative, and installation. He draws on a varied iconographic and iconological repertoire, often inspired by everyday life and the marks left by time, stimulating every trait of the viewer’s perceptual system, visually and emotionally. These include generic objects, poor materials, and mineral and vegetal elements that he sometimes manipulates, presenting them in their original state by observing how they evolve under physical and chemical conditions, natural or artificial. This allows him to make some intervention in the circumstances in which the materials appear in space, modifying how we perceive them and transforming them into another, completely intangible and virtual substance.

The installation conceived for the Große Sperlgasse space is composed of three typological, site-specific sets conceived and dated 2024. The first consists of seven luminous bodies (H1aven-H7aven) corresponding to the number of arms of the Menorah in Jewish practice during Hannukah. Each one is positioned near a window: five in the gallery plus two that open into the room adjacent to it. And each emits a glow which, at the same time, takes on several different characteristics, including: identification (signalling where the exhibition space is positioned, even at some distance), location (its energy, intensity, and chromaticity involves its spatial circumstances), symbolism (the mystical and spiritual value of the luminous glow), and allegory (seen from afar, the lamps resemble candle flames with golden reflections, or votive lamps suspended in a temple). 

The seven electrical structures are completed by a glass surface, a recurring material in Choróbski’s work composed, before processing, of a sandy mixture. This recalls the geological residues that covered Karmeliterviertel when, until the 19th century, it was subject to continuous flooding and, more generally, the sand of the desert of Biblical memory: Moses leading the Israelites into the promised land, passing through the desert. The exhibition evokes this episode from the Book of Exodus to reflect on both the current state of the world, marked by migrations and the wanderings of many different displaced groups in search of a place to live, and Celan’s constant traveling in search of somewhere he could just exist in peace. Thus, we once again return to Jewish tradition and its historical imprint, still alive, in the area that hosts the Foundation. 

Traces of glass reappear in the door and window frames, coming from the fusion of two “instruments” of physical and personal comfort: thermoses (heat-insulating containers created for the conservation of the heat of a liquid product) or in the hemispheres for the practice of “cupping” (a medical therapy). These are recycled materials which, together with the traces of colour present on the wooden frames of doors and windows, leads back to a topic very dear to Choróbski: memory, a vital part of his project. To complete this, there are sculptures positioned on the floor of the gallery, both entitled H.aven. These two stone cylinders hold the same amount of glass sand that could, in theory, be contained in a pair of human lungs. With this, the artist refers to breathing: a primary vital process and a metaphor of individual and collective existence.

Finally, the small room in front of the entrance to the gallery hosts Nature. This video installation is played on a sheet stretched across the walls, a sort of false ceiling under which a stool is positioned allowing viewers to sit and watch the projection. At short intervals, luminous writing appears on the linen fabric, as if traced on a fluid surface, reading “Nature banished into imperfection”. Seen from bottom to top and inside the room, the inscription, moved by reflections like those caused by grazing light on an irregular surface, make the viewer feel as if they are underwater or immersed in amniotic fluid. It constitutes yet another allegory of life, in line with Choróbski’s entire research project, confirming the continuous intertwining of history, memory, and emotions.

Pier Paolo Pancotto, curator

 

Please note: due to the multimedia nature of the exhibition, the Kahan Art Space Vienna will be open daily from 18:00 - 22:00, Wednesday to Saturday.

Photocredit: © Manuel Carreon Lopez