Review of Karim Aïnouz’s exhibition ‘BLAST!’

by Nadia Egan // Feb. 23, 2024

There is no denying the allure of nostalgia—that particular longing for the past, which we often think of warmly, in a sweet and rosy reminiscence. The little pull on our heart strings whenever we come across a forgotten photograph or small trinket tucked away at the back of a drawer. Karim Aïnouz’s exhibition ‘BLAST!’ taps into this feeling, stirring up a sense of wonder for days gone by through a collection of personal photographs and mundane items that allow us to momentarily indulge in his anthology of memories.

Karim Aïnouz: ‘BLAST!,’ 2024, installation view at daadgalerie // © Karim Aïnouz, art/beats

As someone who is not necessarily a cinephile, I must admit that I didn’t know much about Aïnouz before being introduced to his current exhibition at daadgalerie. The filmmaker, who has garnered awards at festivals such as Cannes and the Berlinale, first came to Berlin in 2004 as a fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, working primarily on the screenplay for ‘Cidade Baixa/Lower City’ (2005), a film about two best friends, Deco and Naldinho, who put their friendship on the line as both fall in love with a stripper. It’s clear that Aïnouz’s time in Berlin was particularly poignant for him, with many notable locations—such as Sonnenallee, Tempelhofer Feld, or the fluorescent glow of U-Bahn stations—cropping up again and again in the exhibition’s collection of personal footage.

Karim Aïnouz: ‘BLAST!,’ 2024, installation view at daadgalerie // © Karim Aïnouz, art/beats

To add to the wistfulness of being surrounded by old memories, the photographs are displayed via vintage carousel slide projectors, clicking loudly with each turn of the slide and casting brightly saturated images onto the gallery’s walls. To a Gen Z like me, the carousel slide projector is something firmly rooted in the past, its presence here adding to this sense of stepping back in time and witnessing another era.

Alongside the projections are miscellaneous items, presumably collected by Aïnouz over the last few decades; things such as sets of keys, a disco ball, cassette tapes, party confetti, diaries and an electric razor. It’s possible to spot some connections between the items and the photographs. Perhaps if I had more of a connection with the filmmaker beforehand, these items would have held even more interest for me, rather than seeming like random, forgotten miscellaneous items found in any household drawer.

Karim Aïnouz: ‘BLAST!,’ 2024, installation view at daadgalerie // © Karim Aïnouz, art/beats

What did have a certain charm, however, was the hobbyist feel of much of the footage, particularly ‘Sunny Lane’ (2011/23), an ode to Neukölln’s Sonnenallee, a place Aïnouz called home. The footage juxtaposes a bleak Berlin winter with a scorching North African summer and is what the artist calls “a meditation on longing and belonging.” The camerawork, particularly the grainy scenes of Berlin, reminds me of a home movie; vintage, amateur and deeply personal.

Karim Aïnouz: ‘BLAST!,’ 2024, installation view at daadgalerie // © Karim Aïnouz, art/beats

The tone of the exhibition takes a turn in the final room, becoming more somber and showing the flip-side of nostalgic memory. ‘Brighter Than the Sun’ (2023), a fictional narrative created in collaboration with Viviane Letayf, overhears 70-year-old Abdel, a Reggane-born Algerian immigrant now in France, recount to a psychoanalyst his experiences of the nuclear testing that took place in his hometown under French colonialism in 1960/61. Aïnouz, whose father was Algerian, only recently traveled to his fatherland, a journey which was chronicled in his 2021 documentary ‘Mariner of the Mountains,’ and one that touches upon the country’s postcolonial history. Much like Aïnouz has a story to tell with his photographs and possessions, Abdel tells the story of his own, and the collective, trauma of Reggane.

Both Aïnouz and Abdel share something in common, their habit of recording. “I was 14 when I started writing in a diary everything that happened to me. […] As an adult, I bought a camera and I started filming obsessively as well. I perfected this way of leaving my mark. I bought a recorder. […] I’m so afraid I’ll forget.” Perhaps there is a small reflection of Aïnouz in the words of Abdel, a glimpse into his shared need for storytelling and remembering. Regardless, the especially urgent need to remember the nightmares of the past in order not to repeat them is echoed in the words of Abdel when he says: “We can’t forget the horror, or else it might happen again elsewhere.” In the saturated dreamland of memories that makes up the majority of Aïnouz’s exhibition, ‘Brighter Than the Sun’ was what really stirred something in me, showing that even the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia are not always enough to shade us from the horrors of the past.