Soldier Playing With Dead Lizard

catalogue published on the occasion of an exhibition at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin: “The world of Daniel Barroca is inhabited by suspended presences that oscillate between present and past, indeterminate but carrying an image, Barroca’s research appears to deal with the relationship between form and image, with the latter enshrined in the evanescence of the former. … By blowing up an image and scrutinising its details, Barroca dislocates it from its original context into a new imaginary yet familiar world, a process reminiscent of an induced déjà-vu. When enlarging the detail, the form is lost but the image is gained, a psychological image that tends toward pure vision. Rhythm and atmosphere create a hypnotic, ethereal atmosphere; the fact that it is not evaporating is solely owed to the solid and multi-layered matter on the film and on the paper. The drawings shown alongside the videos participate in this quest towards the image freed from the rigidity of form”, a book version of 8 video series with the same title by the artist, zoomed-in parts of photographs found at a Portuguese flea market, so one can really see the texture and details of the b/w film. The latter part consists of b/w charcoal, graphite and oil stick drawings and film stills of leafless trees, with a DVD in the back and texts (in English) by Francesco Stocchi and Cristoph Tannert, hard cover, 24 x 17 cm, 78 not numbered pages, Berlin 2008