bsmall2Dec 23
> A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.
#HannahArendt in #LifeOfTheMind quotes this passage by #WalterBenjamin on #PaulKlee and #AngelusNovus
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GermanZero HamburgAug 12, 2025

"Dass es 'so weiter' geht, ist die Katastrophe"

Eine Interpretation der "Hothouse Earth"-Grafik als #Kosmogramm

https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/hothouse-earth-dass-es-so-weitergeht-ist-die-katastrophe/

#Klimakatastrophe #Erdsystem #HothouseEarth #Biodiversitätskrise #WalterBenjamin #AngelusNovus #PaulKlee #Kipppunkte #SozialeKipppunkte #EarthSystemStewardship #PlanetareGrenzen #Kosmologie #LaudatoSi

Hothouse Earth: Dass es so weiter­geht, ist die Katastrophe

Klimadiagramme sind mehr als visualisierte Daten, sie entwerfen ihre eigenen Narrative und prägen unser visuelles Verständnis der Klimakrise. Birgit Schneider analysiert, wie die Bilder emotionale Zugänge zur Klimakrise schaffen und zum Handeln aufrufen.

Geschichte der Gegenwart
the roamerJul 26, 2025

Hold your position, make tactical retreats if necessary, but keep the core of truth alive.

The tide is moving against us, in so many dimensions. Covid brought upon us a new wave of eugenicism; the far right is on the rise everywhere; genAI threatens our mental autonomy. The US constitional arrangement disintegrates. Big Business has taken over the UK Labour government. The horrors of the Middle East.

All of these developments amplify each other. There is no way for us to succeed against this powerful confluence of developments just right now. Things will get worse still.

But the tide will turn, eventually.

Our task is to maintain islands of integrity, wherever we can. To maintain a living memory of what it means to speak the truth, to be kind, to be authentic, to recognise facts, to listen.

That will not always be possible, but try we must.

#resistance #kindnesswillprevail #WalterBenjamin #DerEngelDerGeschichte #AngelusNovus #PaulKlee #PeterWeiss #DieAesthetikDesWiderstands

Show threadChris W.Jul 8, 2025

Mehr als in der Ausstellung erfährt man über den Angelus Novus in dem Artikel von Jonas Engelmann ( @ventil_verlag ) in der @jungleworld :

https://jungle.world/artikel/2020/35/der-engel-wird-100

#angelusnovus #walterbenjamin #paulklee

Der Engel wird 100

Jonas Engelmann: Vor 100 Jahren entstand Paul Klees »Angelus Novus«

jungle.world
Chris W.Jul 8, 2025

»Es gibt ein Bild von Klee, das Angelus Novus heißt.«
Laut Walter Benjamin ist ein Engel »darauf dargestellt, der aussieht, als wäre er im Begriff, sich von etwas zu entfernen, worauf er starrt. Seine Augen sind aufgerissen, sein Mund steht offen und seine Flügel sind ausgespannt. Der Engel der Geschichte muß so aussehen.«

Hängt da noch bis Sonntag im Bodemuseum.

#walteebenjamin #angelusnovus #paulklee

the roamerJul 10, 2024

The Angel of History

Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage.

#WalterBenjamin #AngelusNovus #PaulKlee #history

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Paul_Klee_~_Angelus_Novus_~_1920.jpg/509px-Paul_Klee_~_Angelus_Novus_~_1920.jpg

BellingenNSWOct 30, 2023

Forest wars and the angel of history
Nothing shall stand in the way of making money

"Forestry Tasmania lodged legal action seeking $6,200 damages from Ms Beltran over her disruptions to native forest logging. Her angel protest had been blocking a road, and police also wanted compensation.Tasmanian government authorities taking legal action against an angel. It was an amazing story."

"Native forest logging continues in most regions, and the Tasmanian government has introduced harsher penalties for protest activity that disrupts public roads and stops businesses from making money."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-31/weld-angel-photo-brings-world-attention-to-tasmanian-forests/103040832

"A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."
Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History," 1940

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelus_Novus#cite_note-2
#LoggingIndustry #Australia #WeldAngel #photography #AngelusNovus #protests #action #logging #NativeForests #StopLogging #progress #destruction #climate #catastrophe

Matthew Newton's image of the Weld Angel brought world attention to Tasmania's forests

Photographer Matthew Newton captured an image of a protest that brought international attention to Tasmanian forests. He says the Weld Angel heralded a new era of creative protest.

ABC News
Show threadBrian SmallJul 2, 2023

.> Benjamin wrote of the failures of so-called “progress,” citing the marginalized histories that we cannot remember because victors inspire a collective amnesia to preserve dominant narratives. He wrote of the societal fracturing that occurs when histories are ignored, cultural fault lines that burst open in times of economic or social change. He wrote of yesterday, and somehow also of today.....> ... As a sort of pilgrimage for his fallen companion, Scholem carried the painting to Israel. And soon after, Hannah Arendt took the final words that Benjamin had written (the Theses) and fled with them, eventually making her way—and their way—to America. #Progress and the #NewAngel, #FragmentedStories #MarginalizedHistories #DominantNarratives:
#WalterBenjamin #AngelusNovus and #GershomScholem #HannahArendt, article by #ElisabethBecker:
- https://imagejournal.org/2019/04/16/the-angel-of-history/

The Angel of History - Image Journal

Paul Klee's angel taught me in a single glance not that history repeats itself, but that the fullness of history remains within us.

Image Journal
Brian SmallJul 1, 2023

.> His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back his turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. The storm is what we call progress. I never would have noticed the #AngelusNovus painting by #PaulKlee if it wasn't for this paragraph by #WalterBenjamin. I think #EdwardTufte mentions it in one of his books and that's how the paragraph, Walter Benjamin, and the painting got into my thoughts.
- https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/2791-the-storm-blowing-from-paradise-walter-benjamin-and-klee-s-angelus-novus
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelus_Novus

The Storm Blowing from Paradise: Walter Benjamin and Klee's Angelus No

The Storyteller: Tales Out of Loneliness gathers for the first time the fiction of the legendary critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin. Each text in the book is accompanied by a Paul Klee illustration. Below, Stuart Jeffries examines the meaning that Klee's Angelus Novus held for Benjamin. In 1921, Walter Benjamin bou

Verso
Thomas DreherFeb 21, 2023
Victor Burgin: Angelus Novus (Street Photography), 1995. Triptych.
3 digital prints, 213.4 x 91.5 cm each. More informations in: Dreher, Thomas: Angelus Novus 1995. In: cat. of exh. Photography after Photography, Institute of Contemporary Art. Philadelphia 1996, p.144-147. Internet: https://dreher.netzliteratur.net/3_Konzeptkunst_Burgin_Ange.pdf #victorburgin #angelusnovus #walterbenjamin #paulklee #conceptart #conceptartist #conceptartists #conceptartwork #conceptartworks #computerart #tryptich #tryptichon #thomasdreher