Miguel Rothschild

Berlin-based, Argentine artist Miguel Rothschild borrows the title of his installation from one of Jorge Luis Borges’s later poems. Borges’s “Elegy” is a unified snapshot of an overriding sense of world-weariness. The general mood of the protagonist recalls the viewpoint of someone given the opportunity to encounter the famous Aleph, representing a point in space containing all other points in the world.

Rothschild is also concerned with a particular viewpoint that eludes definition. His elegy plays with the viewer’s perception. The image is several images, the sea is also the sky and vice versa; they are two sides of a coin seeking to be discovered. To move onward, Borges once wrote, is to change the form of one’s surroundings.

In his new work, Rothschild’s interest in German Romanticism is again present. He uses the theme of melancholy to also create a link to his earlier work: when contemplating Elegie through this prism, one also sees Memento Mori (2013) and Et in Arcadia ego (2009); his approach to Elegie is similar to that of his earlier, large-scale installation Melencholia A.D. (2007)—the first time the artist dealt with Albrecht Dürer. This work was presented at the Berlinische Galerie, the Akademie der Künste, as well as MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano Buenos Aires).

ELEGÍA

Sin que nadie lo sepa, ni el espejo,
ha llorado unas lágrimas humanas.
No puede sospechar que conmemoran
todas las cosas que merecen lágrimas:
la hermosura de Helena, que no ha visto,
el río irreparable de los años,
la mano de Jesús en el madero
de Roma, la ceniza de Cartago,
el ruiseñor del húngaro y del persa,
la breve dicha y la ansiedad que aguarda,
de marfil y de música Virgilio,
que cantó los trabajos de la espada,
las configuraciones de las nubes
de cada nuevo y singular ocaso
y la mañana que será la tarde.
Del otro lado de la puerta un hombre
hecho de soledad, de amor, de tiempo,
acaba de llorar en Buenos Aires
todas las cosas.

Jorge Luis Borges