Mr. Bones is a dog whos homeless  owner believes in the existence of  heavenly wonderland, named Timbuktu, a souls’ oasis - “there you were at home with the universe  , a speck of antimatter logged in the brain of god” (1) . This is not a concrete Timbuktu, a salt trading city in the Mali desert, in west Africa, but rather a Timbuktu of the end of the history (2). Chanan de Lange is having a dialogue with Paul Auster,  that is having a mind stream monologue through the main characters of his book “Timbuktu”, at their last journey in life. During his travels to Paris, London and Alaska, Chanan accumulates personal experiences, sketches, drawings and video clips, which translate to a group of objects that touches human situations, ranging from serene to annoying, from romantic to estranged. Timbuktu flickers as a remote intriguing oriental place due to its authenticity. Frozen Alaska is Timbuktu’s negative. The European cities that are presented through de Lange’s meditative process, turn to a place that leads astray our consciousness and memory and exposes us to a totally different experience,  to a different state of mind. The objects, drawings and video clips deal with enigmatic human situations, by slow repetitive motions. The camera is focused on a single continuing event, in a mode of “focused staring”, sometimes intrusive, on an un-staged random scene.  The transfer from sketches to videos and then to objects happens through a form search process that aimed to translate human postures and one time emotional experiences.

Chanan de Lange is a Professor in the industrial design department at “Bezalel Academy of Art and Design- Jerusalem” and headed the department from 1993 to 1996. De Lange has exhibited in museums in Israel and around the world. His works are held in  museums’ collections as well as in private collections.

(1) “Timbuktu”, Paul Auster, 1999

(2) Timbuktu in the song of Fiona Regan  “ Put a penny in the slot”

from the recored “ The end of history “ , 2007