Un Paradiso Amaro/Bitter Paradise
Curatorial Statement by Valerie Habsburg
Un Paradiso Amaro / Bitter Paradise confronts life in paradise with the pain of the forever present past. Teresa Feodorowna Ries spent the last years of her life in the beautiful Paradiso of Lugano. This place was her exile where she could try to find peace after all her terrible experiences. The entry in the guest book of the Casa S. Birgitta on August 25, 1942, gives only a dark inkling: “After my heavy loss, I found peace and consolation here. Heartfelt thanks. F. Ries.”
The artist spent the last years of her life in a place where the world had seemingly not come apart at the seams, where a lake, nestled in a peaceful landscape, gently laps against its shores, and nature breathed life into her. And yet: she could not forget. Her memories almost petrified her; her hands were sealed. Countless letters abound with hints at her struggle to ascertain the whereabouts of her works, which she considered her children.
Words, captured on paper, are what remains. They reveal the ghosts of the past. Memory also resides in paradise; it is the shadow of the golden shine. Mercilessly, the golden mirror of the present shows the past. The grave of a whole life reveals itself. A jumble of stones, broken forever. The shards of a sunken world are the foundation on which this paradise is built.
“Death and Lucifer are smashed, that’s for sure. I feel particularly sorry for Lucifer. I received the Golden Medal for it in the Künstlerhaus after all—as the only lady in Austria.” June 22, 1949 Stories haunt you until you embark on a quest. Found stones are picked up. What emerges is a building, a sculpture, the spirit captured therein. The spirit of an artist, of a time that is no more and yet teaches us so much that is important for the present. “… and yet I am doing well compared to five million people.” February 4, 1956
The title of the exhibition, Un Paradiso Amaro / Bitter Paradise, stands for bitterness and pain, beauty and suffering, life and death. Gold as a color and material refers to the supposed splendor of the past. Gold as jewelry, as a symbol of beauty—yet toxic nevertheless. The toxicity of capitalism and the toxicity of the past. Living on the damaged Earth, toxic yesterday held in memory, makes one wonder about the possibility of preserving the past of a generation in the present generation. Is it possible to retrieve the memory’s store and continue writing? Can history be shown at all without looking through the glass of the present? The true price of gold is doubtful and relentless. Its value is determined not only by the past but also by the daily influences of the present. Gold represents the torment (of the workers in the mines) and merciless capitalism. “I have great difficulties breathing.
Whenever I cough, my chest feels very dry. Like there is dust in my lungs. I want to get rid of it. But it doesn’t come out.” (Miner in South Africa, deutschlandfunk.de)
You can never get rid of this dust, nor of that of the past. It covers the gold that shines in the present. Not everything can be weighed in gold—not even in art. In the exhibition, gold as a symbol of success, achievement, and triumph refers to all that is past, to forgotten successes, and to the highest of all virtues, love. Gold is one of the treasures in paradise, it cannot be assigned to any specific place. The Garden of Eden is a fenced terrain, and yet it is not clear where it is. However, the bitter paradise can be explored on foot, the fragrance of the past inhaled. The works, building blocks of an existence, can speak when they are questioned. Silent stone becomes a narrator about time.
Is paradise a palace, and is its foundation made of gold? Are the gates covered with dust and reveal themselves only to the seeker? And is not bitterness also of gold, born of suffering and pain? Is it not agony that makes gold shine? Memories blur in the ocean, the spirits drowned long ago.