Many artists in the exhibition have taken the material of history and shaped it through their own lived experiences. Here Comani inhabits the lives of people from history through this typed diary written in the first person and consisting of 365 entries, each a reference to an actual event that occurred at some point in the twentieth century. At times horrific and at other times humorous, Comani’s selection of events runs the gamut from wars, assassinations, kidnappings, and natural disasters to discoveries, inventions, fashion firsts, and entertainment debuts. She moves fluidly from one event to the next, casting herself in equal measure as a passive witness, a political activist, a perpetrator, and a victim. In seven entries in the month of January alone, Comani assumes the role of Mussolini announcing the foundation of his dictatorship in Rome (1925); of Elvis Presley recording the single “That’s Alright (Mama)” at his own cost (1954); of an anonymous survivor of the earthquakes in Kobe and Osaka, Japan (1995); and of Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin (1948). Comani has made numerous iterations of this concept as audio installations, artist books, and mural-sized prints, and it has been translated from its original German into seven languages.
–History Lessons