![]() We might be the debris of history, those who somehow made it through the twentieth century, but not unscathed. Or, to take it one step further: we, the spectators, might actually be the rubble. This means that the rubble is where we are. Since the angel faces us as spectators, and - according to Benjamin - also faces the rubble, the wreckage must be located in the hors-champ of the drawing. ![]() But this doesn’t mean there is no rubble at all. There is no rubble depicted on the drawing whatsoever. But it has a surprising and overlooked consequence, if we take its spatial arrangement seriously. 1 Benjamin’s aphorism is well known and quite overquoted. Walter Benjamin described the figure on it as a hapless creature, helplessly carried away by the storm of progress, while staring backwards at a rubble heap growing sky high in its wake. There is hardly a more famous watercolor painting than Paul Klee’s work Angelus Novus. ![]() This essay - first published in October - is collected in Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War, out now from Verso and on sale for 50% off until January 1.
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