Solo show
Photography and video-installation
"There are themes / concerns / obsessions that are evident in Daniel Blaufuks' prolific career: voyage, exile, memory, life and death. Nevertheless, the artist never dodge exploring new techniques, forms or even other technical methods. In "There was a time when we were all alive" we find this double nature, a subject that can easily be referred to past works and be seen as a leap (but perhaps not) in the explorations of the artist.
Returning to video work, Blaufuks presents three simultaneous visions of the interior of Pantheon’s dome in Rome in this exhibition. With its construction dating from the end of the reign of Trajan (98-117) and to the beginning of the reign of Hadrian (117-138) the Pantheon, as the name implies, was the house of the various gods of the Roman pantheon. With its coffered dome, and its perfect balance between sphere (dome), cylinder (rotunda) and cube (vestibule with second elevation), the Pantheon is an architectural achievement that still survives today. It also survives as a place of worship. Being the only source of light in the building, the central oculus is open to the sky and invites the visitors to the interior space. Through it, wind and rain are allowed to enter, but the sun has the primacy. In its daily movement the sun transforms the interior of the Pantheon, emphasizing one niche or another, but it is only at noon on April 21, the anniversary of the city of Rome, that the entrance to the temple is illuminated. Blaufuks examines in “There was a time when we were all alive” this transience when filming and photographing only the interior of the dome, eliminating any other temporal reference. The focus of the attention is the oculus and this is the point in which all the visual effects, sometimes extreme, are centered."
Excerpt of the text by Sandra Camacho (Centro de Estudos Comparatistas - FLUL)
