Still Phaethon Falls
Simon Starling’s masked and moving straw puppet was originally part of the 2022 exhibition Metamorfuoco – roughly translated as “transformed by fire” – at the Galleria Estense in Modena, Italy. In an animated and lavishly illustrated lecture developed especially for Chemnitz, the straw man introduces himself – a storyteller, pedagogue and mask-wearing representative of Starling himself. “In a kind of artist’s talk, the strawman describes how, his presence in Chemnitz was inspired by my interest in the life and work of the locally born Hans Carl von Carlowitz (1645–1714). A 17th century tax accountant, turned mining administrator, von Carlowitz is widely considered to be the wellspring for the idea of sustainability in Germany.” Carlowitz saw how more and more forest was being cleared for mining, how the rising price of timber was driving mining companies to ruin and how logs were being delivered from ever more distant regions. With his work Sylvicultura Oeconomica (1713), he is regarded as the founder of the concept of forestry sustainability. The straw man ends his lecture with a German translation of Still Phaethon Falls, a poem-like text about man’s evolving relationship with fire, from the cave to the climate catastrophe. By reusing an earlier work of art and, instead of travelling far, having a puppet represent him, Simon Starling’s idea of sustainability emerges not only conceptually but also in the mode of production.
The Kunstsammlungen am Theaterplatz are open Tuesdays, Thursdays to Sundays and on public holidays from 11 am to 6 pm and Wednesdays from 2 pm to 9 pm.