Introduction
In disquieting video installations David Claerbout tries to come to grips with the passage of time. He lengthens time, allows the present and past to fuse, and sometimes even seems to bring time to a halt. His latest video, Aircraft (FAL), will have its world première at De Pont. The presentation will be accompanied by other video works, drawings and storyboards of his that the museum has been collecting since 2005.
With Aircraft (FAL) Claerbout adds an idea that touches on one of the core responsibilities of museums: to preserve the past. We see an impressive aircraft under construction, supported by immense scaffolding. Everything is palpable and feels brand new: the polished aluminum, the labels on the boxes, the glass. Even the guards’ footsteps on the concrete floor sound crisply fresh. But the setting is outdated and the model of the aircraft old-fashioned, as if its construction has, for some reason, been delayed for more than seventy years. Such ambiguous and incompatible experiences of time clash in one’s mind. By once again interweaving past and present with the utmost subtlety Claerbout creates a kind of interim time. In this way he also creates space for contemplating the future and progress, the aircraft being the perfect metaphor for this. After having reversed, halted and lengthened time, Claerbout now seems to be asking himself, too, whether time as such can be preserved.