In ‘A Berlin Chronicle’, Benjamin wrote the following:

I was struck by the idea of drawing a diagram of my life, and I knew at the same moment

exactly how it was to be done. With a very simple question I interrogated my past life, and

the answers were inscribed, as if of their own accord, on a sheet of paper that I had with me. A year or two later, when I lost this sheet, I was inconsolable. I have never since been able to restore it as it arose before me then, resembling a series of family trees. Now, however, reconstructing its outline in thought without directly reproducing it, I should, rather, speak of a labyrinth. I am not concerned here with what is installed in the chamber at its enigmatic centre, ego or fate, but all the more with the many entrances leading to the interior. These entrances I call primal acquaintances; each of them is a graphic symbol of my acquaintance with a person whom I met, not through other people, but through neighbourhood, family relationships, school comradeship, mistaken identity, companionship on travels, or other such hardly numerous- situations. So many primal relationships, so many entrances to the maze.

Diagram for Walter Benjamin was originally published in the collection The Lost Diagrams of Walter Benjamin (MA Biblioteque, 2017) and was made as a risograph print for Kenning’s exhibition Where It Was at Piper Keys. Picking up on Benjamin’s notion of ‘primal acquaintances’, it shows a number of key figures – people, places, ideas, experiences – each representing an opening to a sigle labyrinth which takes the shape of a human form. This form (Benjamin) is constituted of nothing except the labyrinthine structure, and the primal figures that we imagine entering through its empty passages.

Each print is signed on the front by the artist.

Dean Kenning exhibited at Matt's Gallery in 2019 with the solo show, Physcobotanical.

A bespoke framing service is available.

For further information or to purchase a framed edition please contact info@mattsgallery.org or call 020 8067 3842.