ARCHIPEL ROXY (2023)
Among such sites are those that never had the chance to be realised in the way they were intended. Martin Punitzer’s Roxy Palast cinema, which was erected in 1929, is a gem of the New Objectivity, among the many ultra contemporary aspects of Weimar era Germany we are still trying to claw back from the ravages of war and time. The cinema palast was finished, yes, but on could ask whether the vision of the architect was ever accomplished. As a Jew, Punitzer fled Germany like Rosenthal and Zweig, along with so many others.
Decades later, Punitzer’s drafts were uncovered in a shed in Austria, burnt, information lost. ArchipelRoxy (2023) sets these recovered blueprints against a black tabletop commands our attention to the tattered edges of the drawings. The inky expanse, like an archipelago, floats in the absence of collapsed futures we could never know.
- Kate Brown
Memories of a place I have never been...Part II, HOTO Gallery
Archipel Roxy (2023), 1-9, 85 x 85 cm, pigment print
Among such sites are those that never had the chance to be realised in the way they were intended. Martin Punitzer’s Roxy Palast cinema, which was erected in 1929, is a gem of the New Objectivity, among the many ultra contemporary aspects of Weimar era Germany we are still trying to claw back from the ravages of war and time. The cinema palast was finished, yes, but on could ask whether the vision of the architect was ever accomplished. As a Jew, Punitzer fled Germany like Rosenthal and Zweig, along with so many others.
Decades later, Punitzer’s drafts were uncovered in a shed in Austria, burnt, information lost. ArchipelRoxy (2023) sets these recovered blueprints against a black tabletop commands our attention to the tattered edges of the drawings. The inky expanse, like an archipelago, floats in the absence of collapsed futures we could never know.
- Kate Brown
Memories of a place I have never been...Part II, HOTO Gallery
Archipel Roxy (2023), 1-9, 85 x 85 cm, pigment print