LISI RASKIN

Energetic Fields within Raskin/Hauptman: Kriegswichtig, Reception, Berlin, 2010

Energetic Fields within Raskin/Hauptman: Kriegswichtig, 2010. Photo documentation of live, participatory performance, 25 mins. Reception Gallery, Berlin, Germany.

While researching the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, a document produced to analyze the efficacy of aerial bombardments in the European and Pacific theaters during WWII and the "Speer Report" which tracked the physiological effects of bombing on German civilians, Raskin grappled with a spiritual and intellectual conflict: why create representations of violence they wished did not exist? Inspired by W.G. Sebald's complete works, the artist decided to deepen their Reiki practice in the direction of Germans who suffered during WWII. With this in mind, they created a two-person show at Reception Gallery in Berlin which presented Raskin's long-term alter ego Herr Dr. Wolfgang Hauptman as the artist behind chakra paintings charged with healing energy alongside Raskin's violent representations of gunship weaponry. Hauptman's chakra paintings synthesize graphs from the Speer Report with geometric images that the artist imagined during their Reiki charging. This show was Raskin's first attempt at using the mechanisms of a gallery exhibition to trouble the myth of the individual artist and thereby examine the ethics of representing violence.