Anette Becker

Opening of the installation ”Parting” 
on the 25 November 2001, Protestant Church Hochheim

Eulogy by Janssen Peters

On a Sunday devoted to the commemoration of the dead, to be in a church and to be surrounded by an installation entitled ‘Parting’ - that means a great deal. What a truly earnest occasion, what what a grave responsibility that hardly anybody of us is willing to bear voluntarily - regardless of whether we ourselves are affected by parting or others around us - and we by them.

But where does this earnestness and this grave responsibility, this dejection come from?

I believe it is the fact that nobody is able to evade this matter. And the aim of this installation by Anette Becker is certainly not to make us feel this dejection - for we achieve this quite independently, all on our own.

On the contrary, it is meant to show us - within in this inescapable reality - a process which assigns parting to life, a process which comes from life and returns to life; that is to say, a process - no matter how earnest and grave - which can be invaluable for the living.

Each of us knows: death, parting, loss - also loss felt when a loved one leaves and we are left behind - all of this is part of life - leading to the saying that: ‘Life is a series of partings.’

I do not believe that this is rational knowledge to be acquired by experience. I believe rather that this is a form of knowledge which is already borne in every soul, with which every soul is already endowed from the very beginning of life, and that the experience of parting is the way this knowledge is uncovered, rises and - be it even mysteriously and vaguely - takes effect on our lives.

Of course, this knowledge may be valid beyond this life as well, but there it will be above our heads quite soon. And, due to the desire for knowing what is what and for easing one's mind by means of this competence, it is even able to prevent just what should occur: that is, not only to endure and tolerate parting, not only to accept it as something that is unavoidable in general, but to accept this real parting, to experience that oneself is really called by it, and to meet the demand coming from this call through the consultation of the bereaved, those who continue to live - in order to find an equilibrium which I believe is not adequately described by saying one “has come to terms”. 

For every parting remains with us, every individual panel of this exhibition remains with us, every transition from one to the other remains with us, these two rows on the left and on the right remain with us, and the whole remains as the sum of its parts. 

If this is supposed to be more, this time, this space of parting has not only to be experienced and went through, but the space also has to be left. Only then do we have a view of this installation in total, and only then does it express the equilibrium established, this compensation, which is earned through this intense process of parting in order that it can have an effect on our subsequent life, whereby parting does not just mean that something is taken away and a void is opened up, but also means growth and enrichment. 

These are the two aspects which Anette Becker sees in the process of parting - let us call them the aspect of taking leave - and the aspect of giving leave. Both aspects complement each other. Only with each other and through each other do they reach an equilibrium. Only together can they do justice to life - to what has left and nevertheless remains with us - and to what has remained and nevertheless walks on. 

At first, there is taking leave, tolerating it, involuntarily. This is suffered - and it is pain, grief, and also hurt and reproach - reproach towards the person who has departed and left us behind, but also reproach towards what we call fate and even reproach towards life itself - and this can turn into defiance, the refusal to accept life as it appears unjust. 

The black panels depict the initial aspect of this process. Of course, they show it the way Annette Becker sees it. And it is not only the choice of the technique and the material which is personal here. The personal touch is clearly demonstrated in the strokes of writing, which run through these panels like shadows; strokes in which the personal touch becomes intimate - so intimate that they are illegible not only to the observer, but also illegible to the artist herself - because it is not the words which are important; it is not important which word or which sentence expresses complaint and accusation: ultimately these words are not capable of anything. They are powerless. They rise, and they fall again, and they rise again and again. - So that if any one of these panels should represent ‘coming to terms’, it would be disproved through its own repetition in the next one. 

From this point of view, this aspect of the process is truly awful. We appear to be caught up in an interminable fight. The only thing that takes place is that repetition, which can wear us down. And the only thing that could save us would be oblivion as a consequence of exhaustion. 

But there is that other aspect - that bright and secure aspect. 

Anette told me: when she was working on the black panels and entered this dark, unfriendly and aggressive aspect repeating complaint and accusation again and again because she did not know anything else and seemed to dissolve in it completely because the injustice had not yet been sufficiently worked … that it was then that she - maybe while working on the fourth or fifth panel - noticed: 

Something was missing! - 

Something is behind me that also calls me because it also is true. And she turned round and looked at the other aspect, spotting a point where she had not seen anything for a long time, but where something was waiting to be heard. 

And for me personally it was perhaps the most important clue regarding this installation when Anette clearly said: this bright aspect, which has lost all of that unfriendly character and which contains so much that is gentle and kind - it was the one that before and during conception was much harder to endure and to work than that dark familiar aspect of pain. 

For here the process shows quite a different aspect. Here the task suddenly is to give leave - and thus the second aspect of the process began to demand its panels. And other words and sentences came up - and here, too, it did not make any difference what words or sentences were. 

What was important was the fact that there were words, that there was this call, that there was the same power of truth as in the case of the other aspect and that it was heard - that is, the same attention and work and repetition had to be paid to them. ... Until it turned out well. 

Some days ago, I stood in front of these panels again - and asked myself: where is there more light? ... On the dark side. Here the light is reflected, the panels shine and appear more animated and lively through those changes between light and shadow - here it is me who acts - and how different is the bright side, which is faintly protected ... For here something lives out of itself, independent of my will, no longer my truth - here something has a right out of itself. And accepting this right and awarding it the same truth - and then by acknowledging it giving up inwardly - this is what makes this aspect the aspect of giving leave for me. 

Here I become silent and listen to what has the right of speaking instead of me - that what is lost. Here it continues to live, unswerving, protected and, with its own light, strangely remote, but at the same time within me - and therefore staying - and, by staying, healing and heading for what I earlier called equilibrium or compensation. 

This is the process of parting as depicted in images by Anette Becker for herself and for others. She calls these panels - each one independent but all of them united together in this installation - a projection plane for what everybody experiences or has experienced as something personal or intimate. 

And I believe talking about a projection plane even leads a step further into what I called knowledge of the soul in the beginning. True, every parting is different from the other. But this knowledge about parting is perhaps always the same shared by all living, or, to be more precise, connecting them with each other - connecting them beyond parting - not at the disposal of the individual - nothing has to be done to establish this connection - it is there. But something has to be done to uncover what grants the connection in a particular act of parting, in looking at what has been lost - and, by this, also to be grateful for everything that could be given and taken away within this connection thus giving life power and a direction - in order to be given up, protected for ever and staying for ever. 

Thus parting does not appear to be a state. It is always a process experienced by everyone according to himself. But: there are always those two truths, - here, there is the truth of complaint and accusation, of pain, anger and reproach, a truth I alone answer for - and I have a right to; - and over there is that other truth, which addresses me and where I have to listen and accept what that which has been lost wants to tell me to come into its own and thus stay with me and be protected. 

Both aspects, both truths remain. Neither cancels the other out. They are only valid in conjunction with each other and render that compensation which may appear accomplished when the time of parting has come to an end - when that space has been walked through and is left. 

When I saw this installation for the first time, I was amazed at the willingness of this large hall with its widely spaced walls to incorporate these panels. - And I understood Anette, who said that Sunday which is devoted to the commemoration of the dead was best suited for the presentation this work to the public. 

For there is not always adequate space, nor time. It is a subject which is of great concern to our existence, which deeply enters the soul because the soul is already aware of it - but: it is experienced as a period - and life does not like being checked in doing what it wants to do and what it is best at: walking on - namely by the power of the compensation between those two truths, which both do not allow being denied because they are able to accomplish parting only in conjunction. 

Anette Becker has experienced a process of parting and given it shape with this work in her own way. But it is very important for her to open it up only for those people who are directly affected by this matter and who may recognise themselves in these panels - in their own way, according to themselves. 

However, Anette Becker has accomplished this work on the subject of ‘parting’. She has stepped out of this world and left behind this installation - and has long since entered new worlds. 

When Heike Jung has finished playing some more music, you are invited to do the same and meet other worlds with other works by Anette Becker in her studio. 

Thank you