Herman Asselberghs: For Now

In the last 15 years, the Brussels-based artist Herman Asselberghs has built a modest but precise and internationally presented body of audiovisual work, in which he explores the borders between word and image, world and media, poetics and politics.

As was true of his very first film, a.m./p.m. (2004), the artist’s latest one, For Now interweaves meaningful visits to very different locations into a single state of mind. This time, Tel Aviv, Ramallah and New York lead to Walter Benjamin’s grave at Portbou, in the Spanish Pyrenees, and back again. It is not a film about Benjamin, but rather a Benjaminian film contemplating the cities the German writer never went to. An adaptation in spirit, not to the letter. An actualization rather than a representation.

The central two movements in For Now are horizontal panoramas and firm, vertical edits. The movements show shifts of place without the journey. Nature, the wind, movement that occurs all on its own—these would seem to be the film’s real subject matter. The film unfolds in waves. Locations come, go, and come back again—Lewinsky Park, Maximilian Park, Habima Square, Lion Square, Zucotti Park, Times Square, pastoral landscapes at opposite ends of the Mediterranean Sea. The actions are the same. People wait, pass by, kill time. The contrast between refugees and citizens, between activists and tourists, between Israelis and Palestinians, between Europeans and Americans, all become less clear. The repetition of these unclarified relationships, Asselberghs’ decisive filming after the fact, the enigmatic inclusion of hand signals—all these work together to reveal a certain constellation in which things come together momentarily before taking their leave. It is a film running alongside the events, and alongside time. A contemporary film in the pure sense of the word—a way of being with time.

For Now is the title of the new film as well as of a solo exhibition. Both deal with a swelling of time, inspired by a Benjamin quote: "In times of great turmoil, time comes to a standstill." For Now appears like a snapshot trying to bridge the past and the future, history and the present, memory and expectation. In this show, Asselberghs proposes four films from his on-going body of work: a.m./p.m. (2004), This was before (2014), Watching words becoming a film (2017) and For Now (2017).

The publication that accompanies For Now is edited by the artist. Upon invitation by Asselberghs, the authors Pieter Van Bogaert, Stoffel Debuysere and Dieter Lesage each elaborate on the thoughts and affects generated by his newest film work.

For Now is supported by the Flemish Authorities, the Flemish Community Commission, Cultuurcentrum Mechelen, De Garage, Contour Mechelen, Beursschouwburg, On & For Production and LUCA School of Arts.

In collaboration with Auguste Orts.