I Am Afraid I Must Ask You to Leavein collaboration with Julian Charrière | Utah (USA), Zacatecas (Mexico), 2018
“Hoodoo destruction video: authenticity in question”, FOX 13 News Utah, 12 Dec 2018
Grand Staircase Escalante, We Must Ask You to Leave (mountain view drive), 2018
Whether verified as World Heritage by UNESCO or designated as national parks, some parts of nature are considered more precious, rare or beautiful than others. Such allocations of meaning are not objective but tied to culture-related constructions of value. In I Am Afraid I Must Ask You to Leave von Bismarck and Charrière ask what happens when one of these value-laden symbols is deliberately, arbitrarily destroyed. In a staged terroristic act, the two artists blow up an arched rock formation. A blurry video taken with a mobile phone shows the masked ‘perpetrators’ running away to safety. It is a successful illusion: both the arch’s typical reddish-brown rock strata and the surrounding scenery make us believe that the video was filmed in the Arches National Park, Utah (USA).
The actual explosion, however, does not occur in Utah but in Zacatecas (Mexico), where the artists built artificial counterparts. In a very detail-oriented process, five natural monuments were re-created in 1:1 scale with natural stone and cement. The explosions were staged in a controlled manner with the assistance of a local production team. The set up calls to mind ISIS propaganda videos, such as the blasting in Palmyra or the destruction of the Buddha statues in Bamiyan by the Taliban. After publishing the videos with no clear source, the event was discussed on social media channels and broadcast on US television trying to figure out whether some actual eco terrorism took place. National park services and the FBI started to investigate. The general image of nature as an essential, positive entity still pervades, because such a brutal act of nature-vandalism seems hard to imagine.
Canyonlands, We Must Ask You to Leave (vertical viewpoint),2018
Canyonlands, We Must Ask You to Leave (scenic viewpoint), 2018
Island in the Sky, We Must Ask You to Leave (vertical viewpoint), 2018
I am Afraid I Must Ask You To Leave, behind-the-scenes, 2018 (video still)
I am Afraid I Must Ask You To Leave, behind-the-scenes, 2018 (video still)
Julius von Bismarck and Julian Charrière – I Am Afraid I Must Ask You to Leave, film still, 2018
I am Afraid I Must Ask You To Leave, behind-the-scenes, 2018 (video still)
I am Afraid I Must Ask You To Leave, behind-the-scenes, 2018 (video still)
Installation view ‘I am Afraid’, Sies + Höke, Dusseldorf, 2019
Installation view ‘I am Afraid’, Sies + Höke, Dusseldorf, 2019
Installation view ‘I am Afraid’, Sies + Höke, Dusseldorf, 2019