Ancient Lamentations in the Modern City

Last night we witnessed the opening of Christoph Schäfer’s astounding exhibition, Lamentation for Ur, at the kunstraum pro arte in Hallein. Introduced with a graceful and touching elegance by Jo Ractliffe, Schäfer himself was brief and self-effacing, exuding an easy humour which belied, and thus intensified, the import of his work.

The exhibition takes as its starting point the ancient texts composed after the conquest of the Sumerian city of Ur in the third millennium BC, inspiring a meditation on the very concept of the “city”. We are presented with a series of images evoking and this ancient catastrophe and its very modern relevance, forcing us to rethink how the past can expose the ways in which the present is constructed.

Schäfer’s art is very contemporary - in that it reflects and engages with urgent political and economic concerns - but also develops longstanding questions of place, symbol, and image. There are elements of key thinkers evident, such as Brecht and Benjamin; and there is also a parallel with the Revolutionaries and Romantics of previous generations, for whom the ruins of antiquity challenged and inspired modernity. Yet such simplifications can barely do justice. There is much to see and to ponder here.