Shimon Attie

Steinstrasse 21, Berlin from the series “Writing on the Wall”, 1993

Attie Shimon 26 — Shimon Attie (American, born 1957), *Steinstrasse 21, Berlin from the series “Writing on the Wall”*, 1993, Ektacolor print, 20 x 24 in. Schwartz Art Collection, Harvard Business School, 2003.2. Shimon Attie © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

“For the Writing on the Wall project, I slide-projected portions of prewar photographs of street life in Berlin onto the same or nearby addresses today. By using slide projection on location, fragments of the past were introduced into the visual field of the present. Thus, parts of long-destroyed community life were visually simulated, momentarily recreated. The projections were visible to street traffic, neighborhood residents, and passersby. As much of my art practice is a marriage between photography and installation art, during the course of the installations, I photographed the projections.”—Shimon Attie