JW_Angel_1.jpg

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Date Created:
17/10/10

Description:
JOSHUA WEBB
APATHY FOR THE SETTING SUN
GALERIE DÜSSELDORF
10 April - 8 May 2011

The Angel of History . 2010
35x35x70 cm(LxWxH)
Edition of 3 (hydro-cal / white)
Edition of 3 (concrete / grey)
Bronze POA
Karl Marx’ severed head – White hemihydrate,
based stone and concrete.
$2800


An angel is depicted there who looks as though
he were about to distance himself from
something, which he is staring at. His eyes are
opened wide, his mouth stands open and his
wings are outstretched. The Angel of History
must look just so. His face is turned towards the
past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of
events, he sees one single catastrophe, which
unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and
hurls it before his feet.He would like to pause
for a moment so fair, to awaken the dead and to
piece together what has been smashed. 
But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has caught
itself up in his wings and is so strong that the
Angel can no longer close them. The storm
drives him irresistibly into the future, to which
his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before
him grows sky-high. That which we call
progress, is this storm.
Walter Benjamin 1940. Theses on the Philosophy
of History