In his artistic practice, Botschen deals with the formation of identities. Starting with his great-grandfather's so-called ancestor passport, he dissects the ideologies and structures that underlie identity and identification. “Every identity must or wants to be proven”—this sentence reflects his profound examination of the power of symbols and images, such as the power of a passport. Botschen removes the certified document from its historical context and transforms it into an ornamental entity with a life of its own. In doing so, he liberates the object from its original function of “giving identity” and questions the
In his artistic practice, Botschen deals with the formation of identities. Starting with his great-grandfather's so-called ancestor passport, he dissects the ideologies and structures that underlie identity and identification. “Every identity must or wants to be proven”—this sentence reflects his profound examination of the power of symbols and images, such as the power of a passport. Botschen removes the certified document from its historical context and transforms it into an ornamental entity with a life of its own. In doing so, he liberates the object from its original function of “giving identity” and questions the individual and social significance of the document. Botschen thus explores the mechanisms of external and self-attribution. [...]
not really - Sasha Levkovich
The self is a mist—a fluctuating structure of reflective droplets, visible through refraction, eluding every touch, even when it seems so tangible. A cloud of moments, connections, memories—many in one. It condenses through language, moves through relationships, clings to desires and dreams, drapes itself over stories and myths of its own world. Always in flux, never definitively formed – and yet always present.
Identification is an attempt to grasp this cloud: to press it into shape, to cut off its fluttering, declaredly inappropriate contours, to seal it and give it a clear name. An identity gained in this way creates visibility, makes it possible to reflect on diversity and difference, and to counter inequalities. But this same visibility also means bureaucratic registrability – the inscription of the subject into an order that determines what is to be valid. An order that is capable at any time to declare individual facets or entire identities undesirable or even punishable.
In his work, Marc Botschen deals with the fractures of such identities and the inadequacies of the identification processes on which they are based. A central object of his examination is his great-grandfather's so-called ancestry passport—a bureaucratic document from the Nazi era that served as genealogical proof of “Aryan” descent.
For his series of acid-treated aluminum objects, pages of the original document were digitized and the text passages layered on top of each other until the writing and graphics condensed into ornamental structures. These served as templates for the etchings on aluminum plates. The acid treatment transfers not only the graphic elements, but also random and mist-like traces of corrosion—traces that waft through the dissolved document like acid clouds.
Skeletal lettering gives rise to motifs reminiscent of climbing plants or forests—traces of an attempt to force life into a grid. But this is precisely where the failure becomes apparent: the etchings reveal not only the violence of the formation, but also its fragility. The proof of identity is exposed for what it is—a perversion of community and belonging.
The objects refer to forms of familial representation and enter into dialogue with painted portraits of the artist's sister. While the oil paintings offer concrete figuration, the aluminum objects appear as abstract repositories of ideological inscriptions. The proximity and physicality of the subjects contrast with the smooth coldness of the metal. However, the spatial positioning of the paintings echoes the ornamental motif, just as the reddish shadows on the woman's face reflect the corrosive clouds of the metal objects. A fleeting connection between a family's past and future.
The works illuminate the complex web that makes up each individual. They show history as a kind of ghostly grid, as abstract patterns with ideological projection. In them, the so-called order appears for what it is: a symbol, an ideological construct that pretends to be a natural given. Perhaps the real is not a desert, as Baudrillard suggested, but an archaeological pit full of ideologies and their victims.
