VI Bettina Carl
07.12. – 23.12.01

MONTES SOVIETICI
Installation, 2001

The “Montes Sovietici” received their name after LUNIK 3 produced the first photographs of the far side of the moon in 1959. For the following three decades the mountains were identified on maps of the moon. However, with the start of the 1990s not only did the name become obsolete, but also the entire mountain range disappeared from new encyclopedias without a trace.
Pictures were the only means to prove whatever lead one of the super powers had gained in the conquest of space. Photography also served as a device for transforming a boundless expanse into something flat, into spatial units resembling territories that could be controlled and owned. Like the pictures of the far side of the moon taken by LUNIK 3, these photographs continue to have an obscure and fictional character. In spite of their naturalistic gesture and propagandistic function, the visual contents of these military trophies have an incredibly unreal quality.
As an element of pompousness, naivete is a central motif in Montes Sovietici. Some alien will manage to read the symbols on the plaque, if he makes an effort ...and sooner or later the trash from different spacecraft will be blown out of sight and be gone. The installation is an open-ended collection of images and objects that reflects the confusing quality and quantity of its subject matter. It combines associative drawings and objects with documentary material (quoted from books as well as faked by the artist, including a planet's portrait generated from the chin of George W. Bush).

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