I note the juxtaposition of the two main groups of elements on each sheet into two equal and contrasting, opposing halves: On the left hand side everything is buried layers deep in unreadable code (though something, at least, is derived from common language and that could be reconstructed): but to the observer the original text is made unobtainable through the various transformations it has undergone and its conversion into a now meaningless sequence of holes. Two further things could be noted with regard to meaning and code on this half of the sheet. Firstly, the orginal text from which the sequence of holes is derived (the Book of Revelations) is in itself essentially written in a code that invites interpretation – clarity of meaning is made even more infuriatingly impossible. Secondly, the handwritten letters disposed amongst the holes can be fairly easily re-assembled in the mind to form a simple word (in German or English at least); the temptation is to regard this simple direct fragment of meaning as somehow offering a “clue” to the meaning one is continually attempting to impose or derive – but does it actually offer that clue, or is it a further item requiring decoding, or is it perhaps even a diversion from meaning into play, a bit of a teasing, irrelevant game offered by the artist?
So, on the left hand side we have this multi-layered code, drawing attention perhaps to the opacity of things, the difficulty of finding meaning. On the right hand side, by contrast, we have – a photograph! In most cases the “meaning” of the photograph is clear: it “is” an aeroplane, a soldier; sometimes the observer needs to work a little harder to read the reference, but it is ultimately clear what is depicted: a fragment of the world (a world of war, or at least a world at war). The relief for the inevitably significance-hungry viewer is great, compared with the frustration prompted by the impenetrable opacity of the left hand side. But at least two things should diminish this relief: firstly, the awareness that the photograph has been formally manipulated: even if any photograph can be taken as a scarcely-unmediated bit of access to the meaning of the world, these fragments cannot: in all their apparent iconographic simplicity they are perhaps as deceiving as the “image” on the left hand side which we know has been painstakingly and deliberately constructed with an intention to conceal. But also, that little sequence of holes should have reminded us that everything is suspectible to interpretation (or to decoding if one accepts that there is an ultimate meaning, which probably this artist does, given his proclaimed religious orientation); the bit of “reality” depicted is not artless.
A further, reinforcing element of confrontation between the two sides is that the photographic image is presented in that simple and most perfect of forms, the square. So too is the space occupied by the elements on the left – but there too the space is articulated into a much more complex series of rectangular spaces (and circular ones too, if one looks at the holes – and if one looks through the holes, or is even aware of the shimmer of light and shadow behind them, there is also depth).
We have then a fine and indissoluble unity of form and content in these works: they are in all ways about the search for meaning, in both what seems not to necessarily demand the search and what unquestionably demands it; it is a war over a terrain that has seen war before and might well see it again.