Monica Ross: valentine

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, British artist and author Monica Ross visited the Dresden Gallery, where she was captivated by Raphael's "Sistine Madonna." This inspired her to research the reception of the painting. "Valentine" is an approach to the Madonna as a sequence of overlapping moments in which temporalities intertwine and recur (Lisa Panting). In her book, Ross intertwines personal memories with an art historical analysis of the painting, leading her to explore various connections, including the case of Dora in Freud's work, which she subjects to feminist critique, a re-reading of Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," as well as the Balkan wars of the 1990s. The original English version was created in 2000 in collaboration with the London gallery Milch and graphic designer Markus Dressen. The book is now available for the first time in German translation. Monica Ross (1950 - 2013) was a British artist and art lecturer who worked with video, drawing, installation, text, and performance. Her works address issues of representation, memory, and history.