– My Grandmother Reads the Theses on the Concept of History by Walter Benjamin : Riccardo Giacconi

– My Grandmother Reads the Theses on the Concept of History by Walter Benjamin

My Grandmother Reads the 'Theses on the Concept
of History' by Walter Benjamin
video, 35’, 2007

The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.

For every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably.

– Walter Benjamin

My grandmother reads the 21 Theses on the Concept of History, a text in which Walter Benjamin addresses the moment of “legibility” of a text, the transmission of history, revolution, and redemption: each act of reading is itself an act of responsibility.

My grandmother reads each thesis in a location that is (or has been) important in her life – in her history.

Exhibited at: Cape Town Art Fair, South Africa (2018); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, Italy (2013); Boston University Art Gallery, Boston, USA (2011); neon>campobase, Bologna (2009); Tese dell'Arsenale, Venezia; Careof, Milano (2008); S.A.L.E, Venezia, (2007).