LIVING WITHOUT SHADOWS

THE Madam is reaching out to press the bell next to her bed.
She doesn’t know who will answer the bell, or if it will be answered at all.
If the bell is answered she will know it is not a Thursday.
If the bell is not answered she will know it is probably Thursday.
But she won’t know what she and her family will eat that night, or whether she will spend another week looking for a new maid.
If the bell is not answered, perhaps she has failed, again.
In that moment, that moment of anticipation as the Madam reaches out for the bell, a cusp is formed at the junction of her present and her past.
‘Living without Shadows’ is the record of that moment.
The moment between the boy and the worker in the trench.
The knife at the throat of the brother.
The waiting at the bottom of the kitchen stairs.
The moment of the revolution.
The moment before she screams.
The moment before unconsciousness.
The moment before death.
Before the button engages.
Before the circuit is complete, the lives of The Madam, her husband, her children and the servants are revealed. Her immigrant family passes from the pogroms of early twentieth century Eastern Europe to Apartheid South Africa.
The intimate moments of the Madams innocent desires and hopes are laid bare in the bathtub.
The perversions of morality, compromise and the victimization of one by the other fester as the family endures the dilemmas and poses of personal success and failure in the face of Fascism and Zionism, depression, misogyny and megalomania. Each reaches to find the equation that will balance betrayal and delusion with the quest for respite, reconciliation and acceptance.

SHERWIN MARK Born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1951, I left for Europe in 1968, only to return to Cape Town 1 1/2 years later where I attended the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. On graduation I joined the staff of the school, followed by two years of post graduate work at the Jan Van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, Netherlands. Living in Amsterdam in 1977, I worked as a Master Silkscreen Printer, House Painter, and Stage Manager, catching, amongst other items magically appearing, the flying pigeons of the Magician in a late-night club on the Leidseplein. I also joined and produced various social documentaries at the ‘Open Studio’, one of the first community-oriented video documentary studios in Europe. Offered a job opportunity as a Designer for a multimedia production group, I left my teaching position at the School for Arts in Israel, and moved to Baltimore, U.S.A in 1981. On arrival, I realized Baltimore was not on the West Coast. I iive in Baltimore and in Samara, Costa Rica. Over my career, I have also taught Photography and Mixed Media at several art Institutions in South Africa, Israel and the U.S.A., and exhibited widely with works in the collections of museums and private collections. ‘Living without Shadows’ represents several years of writing and revision, unlike my art practice where I never revised anything.