Dresden

Freda Guttman's works Leni and Dresden are part of a sequence of installations, globally entitled Notes from the 20th, inspired by the writings of Walter Benjamin who warned about the dangers of not learning from the past. he postulated that until we do, until we awaken from our collective and delusionary notions of progress, we are doomed to endless warfare and violence. This is something that is achingly true as we blindly repeat the past in the 21st century.

Guttman chose the use of the digital technique of Jacquard weaving as a nod to Benjamin's prescient theories about new technologies, how they change our lives before we are even aware of those changes, and how they have determinant effects on artists and their art practices.