You Need a Special Way of Looking to Understand the Balearic Island of Ibiza in All its Diversity and Contrariety

A Text on Christine Schindler’s Photographic Works

By Beate Wedekind*

Ibiza polarizes. Uprightly and proudly defying everyone and everything, seductively enticing at the same time, the island is a place of magical attraction, a courtesan indulging in beauty and sin: Dance or die, promise and curse.

 

Ibiza is a complete challenge. Accept it, and you will grow. Refuse it, and you shall fail. Everything is possible, excess is the goal, and only mediocrity and indifference are scorned. Ibiza heightens and multiplies forces and weaknesses, puts weal and woe equally on the assay balance, gives strength and calm and irritates. Weaknesses become obvious, the evil shows its grimace and punishment follows hard. Nowhere can you fail more miserably.

Ibiza is all one fight. With yourself and the circumstances. Find your self and you will find happiness. On Ibiza they suddenly come easy, the decisions of life, lethargy becomes action, talent turns to creation, longing leads to love. But: Nothing is a game. Naturally, the energy emanating from Ibiza doesn’t reveal itself to everyone. But anybody who senses it or even comes to living it, will never get away from Ibiza.

 

The magic attraction is the golden thread linking Ibiza’s history and present. The Phoenicians, when colonial rulers, brought the ashes of their deceased dignitaries to Ibiza, where they imagined they would find the strongest pull to the healing next world. And, a few centuries later, the Carthaginians took their wives from Carthage to the island so that Tanit, the goddess of desire and fertility, might endow them with new life.

Today tourists from all over the world flock to the island, attracted by marketing strategists, mouth-to-mouth propaganda and the media to taste the sweet honeycomb of the promise of happiness, which today constitute the unique attraction of Ibiza.

 

Before that there were the Romans, the Vandals, the Moors, the Catalans. All sought and found the value of the island, the strategic position in the Mediterranean, the treasures of Ibiza, salt and purple, lead, clay and lime, even amber. The locals were on their guard and always remained the masters, but took over from the strangers whatever they deemed useful. They survived conquests and foreign rule, serfdom and religious wars. They became independent, pirates; they robbed and took their revenge. They gave a new home to those who came to stay on Ibiza as craftsmen and merchants because there they were not outlawed and persecuted, rather they were held in esteem and needed: the Jews from the Middle East, the gypsies from Galicia.

 

Ibiza’s society has always been characterized by tolerance, self-will, self-awareness, negotiating skills, salesmanship and discretion. He who comes is welcome, but also he who leaves. The modern conquerors, the tourists, who have been responsible for prosperity and employment on Ibiza for the past 50 years can, therefore, be seen as the historically ideal case.

Today its the colorful party-goers living it up in the temples of the night, taking a ride, getting away from the daily grind if only for a couple of days. Ibiza, a feast. The gays from all over the world, who have chosen Ibiza for their stage. Ibiza, the great clambake. The chevaliers of fortune and the plungers who want to give it another go. Ibiza, the eternal game. The characters from the fringes of society come here to glean the crumbs of plenty. Ibiza, the last resort. The beautiful and the rich, those blessed by mammon, come to break down all barriers. Ibiza  knows no boundaries. The families come to splash around in the sea. Ibiza, the Mecca of the masses.

Ibiza, the Garden of Eden: Those seeking inspiration and alternatives educate themselves for life as such.

 

For a number of centuries Ibiza had been forgotten. Meanwhile, it struggled with the sea, the stones in the fields, hunger and poverty. It wasn’t until the early 20th century when the island was rediscovered, by artists from all corners of the world looking for the special, the clear white light. Then the Jewish and gay intellectuals arrived, the communists and the esoterics, all finding shelter from Hitler’s henchmen. Until the Spanish Leader, General Franco subdued Ibiza and gave harbor to his former allies, the Nazis and the SS. At the end of his regime, the American hippies, dodging the Vietnam War, brought nonchalance and freedom, a new lightness of being.

They all were but the vanguard. Parallel to the economic boom in Post-War Europe in the sixties, a modern migration of the peoples set in: Tourists discovered Ibiza and necessitated the biggest change that Ibiza has ever undergone. The airport was expanded, more beds were needed, hotels were built and the profiteers of the boom chose the most beautiful spots of the islands for urbanizations. The Ibicencos loved making a fast buck and became the most avid builders themselves. Danger was imminent, for the history of Ibiza was about to drown in a craze of modernization.

Again, Ibiza was lucky: Active, committed citizens and sober local politicians identified many traces of the past as historically and culturally relevant. They dug and they found, they reconstructed and restored, identified and conserved. In museums and at original locations, the stony witnesses of history were made accessible to the public.

Other traces, in their archaic character, have remained the true treasures of the island: the forms and colors, the rituals and customs, the richness of the gestures and sounds of traditional tales and of craftsmanship. Others, again, have manifested themselves in the works of artists, in fashion and musical trends. Finally: Time has created new traces.

 

And then there is that contradiction, these morbid witnesses of the past loitering at the wayside, in the woods, on the beaches, in the cities and in the countryside. These remains of failure, braving all demolition, the grey color of neglect.

Decay on Ibiza, however, is more than impregnable concrete ruins and the ugly refuse of throwaway society. Decay on Ibiza also has a fine aesthetic, making it all the more doleful. The collapsed walls with their proud strength broken, the beautifully grained wood dipped in the traditional pale colors, which is cracking and breaking, the greedy rust destroying forms so that new ones can arise.

           

Periphery is everywhere.

 

The Hamburg interior designer and photographer Christine Schindler only knows Ibiza from a few stays and maybe therefore has such an unspent and precise view of the periphery of Ibiza. Together with the gallery owner Alexander Baumgarte, who has been fascinated by the island for a long time already, she met the wise artist, painter and sculptor Heinz Mack, who, attracted by the light of Ibiza, has been working on the island for decades. This meeting challenged Christine Schindler to deal in her own way with the magic of the place.

 

Christine Schindler on the exhibition project IBIZA – Abseits ist überall: “Talking with Alexander Baumgarte about the history of the island and the strong urbanization in recent decades, we developed the subject for the photographic series “IBIZA” in 2013.  In this series, I show contrasts by visualizing and retaining reality in immediate relation to the past. Keeping a distance from tourism, the work is a documentation of the mystical, historical, deserted or forgotten places of the island and their very own, morbid atmospheres. In many works, I successfully managed to place two scenes into a new and thrilling context, so that the scenes, bizarre anyhow, are amplified and intensified, and irritate the beholder.”

 

This resulted in forceful and haunting photographic works, bridging the gap between eras and places, between the transitoriness of human activity and the almightiness of nature. Through her images, Christine Schindler demands: Look closely, the truth lies off the beaten track.

 

The following descriptions contain information on locations in Ibiza’s periphery, which Christine Schindler turns into contemporary documents by her photographic works. Beate Wedekind, who came to Ibiza for the first time in 1968, and who has always been more interested in the secret messages instead of the surface glamour of the island, has added her personal interpretation of the images.

 

Bungalow Parque is the name of a settlement in Es Figueral, built by Nazis and SS henchmen and their sympathizers.

           

In the fifties and sixties, high-ranking Nazis and SS henchmen found refuge in Franco’s Spain. They built their villas on Ibiza, holed up behind high walls, adopted pseudonyms and escaped justice, protected by Franco’s Guardia Civil and the blinkers of the locals. Because of the influx of German tourists in the sixties, they didn’t feel secure at “Bungalow Parque” any more, fearing to be detected; many sold their estates, moved to mainland Spain, to South America or to near Egypt. Some of them are said to have still resided on Ibiza as late as in the eighties, among others the butcher of Mauthausen, the physician Aribert Heim.

Christine Schindler’s images are of oppressive normalcy. They show how ordinarily life continued after the killings.

 

Ses Feixes in Ibiza’s swamp area hides in the shadow of the entertainment centers, the clubs and discotheques.

 

The swamp right behind the new harbor is one of the largest nature reserves on Ibiza. It is called Ses Feixes. Ancient water canals, Moorish stone gateways and sinuous paths winding through the high reeds: Here destitute Spaniards and illegal aliens have settled in, maneuvering through life by means of unskilled labor and trading whim-wham. They dwell in wooden shacks between crumbling walls, under corrugated iron roofs, without running water or electricity; baby dogs sieve through the garbage, here and there a child cries.

The photographs taken by Christine Schindler testify the bitter hopelessness of these misfits of society.

 

Sa Penya, the old gypsy quarter at the edge of the historic section of town, is on the wane as the stronghold of the gays and transvestites.

Sa Penya was built on bare rock and stretches along a promontory below the historic old town down to the harbor and the sea. The gypsies of the island had been living there for centuries until Sa Penya became the entertainment district of Ibiza, with gay bars, nightclubs and boutiques strung together. Today the small streets rather serve as stumbling tracks for curious tourists in search of the exotic. The main alley, Calle de Virgen, once was home to the legendary boutique “Paula’s” of the German fashion designer Achim Heinemann. The doors are rammed up by heavy iron chains, the premises are for sale. Heinemann, a true master of staging, has switched to the opera. Above the stream of tourists, directly at the enormous city wall, time seems to be standing still. Age-old, narrow houses wait to be rescued from complete decay, people wait for jobs, children for a better future.

The images of Christine Schindler elevate the morbidity of poverty to romantic moments, and the decay of walls and materials to paintings.

 

Dalt Villa, the upper part of the old town behind the historic city wall, has been recognized by the UNESCO as cultural world heritage, but it doesn’t escape the ravages of time.

 

The upper old town, built more than a thousand years ago, has been restored for many years. Former burgess palaces have been turned into secret hideaways by private individuals. Pools and fountains ripple in secluded gardens, the champagne glasses ring on the roof terraces. Some have become luxury hotels, like the Torre del Canoningo, one of the prime addresses of Ibiza. And the El Corsario, where Orson Welles and Errol Flynn have stayed, still is the preferred nonchalant location for the bohemian world. Some, like El Palacio, have had to close their doors already. When staying power and money are lacking, failure is immediate.

The images of Christine Schindler show the civilian palaces before the transition into the new era of luxury and how many a dream is going with the wind.

 

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the fire. The recurring wildfires on Ibiza are an infestation; they frighten and leave one powerless.

 

As recently as 2011, a huge wildfire destroyed complete mountain ranges in the north of Ibiza, the motors of the – few – firefighting aircraft roaring in the air. Many square kilometers of pine woodland were annihilated, the flames raging like in a frenzy. It was indeed a miracle that neither people nor animals were harmed. But a lot of houses were affected and lost their value. The unobstructable view of the sea now goes over a grey aisle instead of an untouched green natural paradise. Those who cause such wildfires are hardly ever caught. Is it carelessness with cigarettes or barbecues? Arson by psychopaths or avengers? Nature, however, doesn’t succumb to man’s powerlessness, it reclaims the stretches of land. Already after two rain periods tiny tender pines sprout from the ashes.

Christine Schindler’s images show the rage of the fire, the black burns, the pain of nature. You breathe in the ashes, smell the soot and you practically feel the fear.

 

Ses Salines is an imposing industrial landscape started 2,500 years ago by the Phoenicians and is just a couple of minutes away from the most mundane beaches of Ibiza.

The rituals on the beach at Las Salinas in 2013 AD: drinking champagne in Es Cavallet, at the beach bar of Sa Trinxa, in Malibu or in the Jockey Club; DJs pumping up the jam early in the morning; watching the luxury yachts anchoring in the strung-out bay. The way to the beach passes the Salinas, the salt fields that you can see from the airplane before landing. Built by the Phoenicians in the 6th century BC, they are still in operation today. Not far from the headland, not visible from the beaches, there is another ancient industrial landscape, Ses Salines, baptized Atlantis by the hippies in the sixties. They carved fantastic figures into the stone, in bizarre contrast to the flat, circled plateaus, the traces of hard labor of slaves in the early 16th century. Here (and at other places on the island like Punta Galera near Sant Antoni) they quarried by hand the limestone used to build the enormous city wall of Ibiza. Legend has it that the stones for building the cathedral in the 13th century, standing on the ruins of the mosque and prehistoric temples, also come from here.

The images of Christine Schindler show the precision with which the lime was quarried. You can almost hear the stonecutters pounding and the hippies sing.

 

Sa Canal is the small port of the salinas, from which the white gold was shipped to the north. Today it finds its way as Sal de Ibiza into the gourmet food stores of the world.

 

One of the sleepiest places of Ibiza is the small settlement of Sa Canal just behind the big heap of salt, from the shallow seawater basins, building up and depleting year after year at harvest time.

The witnesses of the early industrialization of salt production are rusting and rotting, they, too, just a few minutes away from mundane beach life. Following the general architecture of rural Ibiza – its houses growing bigger cube by cube over the generations and due to new necessary functions – also the buildings of the salt works were constructed by and by. The iron rails of the small lissome trains (pulled by men and mules first, then by draisines and finally, by small locomotives), which brought the salt in lorries from the fields to the salt heap, are rusty and draw bizarre lines on the faded white walls of cement.

            The images of Christine Schindler show the layers and materials of the salt works of Sa Canal, the clear lines, which, in their functionality, arrange and control the glittering crystals.

 

Cala d’en Serra – the haunted house. A ruin of concrete and iron overlooks one of the most beautiful bays of the Mediterranean. A never completed hotel, one of several on Ibiza, but one with a special history.

Designed by the Catalan master architect Josep Lluis Sert at the end of the sixties, the building became the plaything of political developments. Sert had gone into exile in the USA under the fascist regime of Franco shortly after building had begun. He was forced to retract his name from the project. After the end of the Franco era he built other beautiful houses on Ibiza; his formal language, the simplicity of his materials, is captivating in its clarity. One can sense that this hotel could have been his masterpiece. Disputed until today, the structure is dozing away in the sun, a skeleton, a ghost. Today it is a playground for graffiti artists, for off-road motorcycle races, for environmental transgressors who degrade this building by Sert to a dung heap and junkyard. There have been many fantasies about what could become of the ruin at this heavenly location, including concrete plans for a hotel. But even today, decades after the beginning of construction, there is no solution in sight, not even demolition, which would be just as much of a shame as the decay.

Christine Schindler’s images are oppressing and fascinating at the same time. The battle between nature and matter, the rape of aesthetics by vandalism. The death of a dream.

 

 

*The journalist, a. o. former editor-in-chief of Elle, Ambiente and Bunte magazines, has been dealing with social photography since the eighties. Beate Wedekind came to Ibiza for the first time in 1968. She lives in Berlin, in an enchanted valley near San Mateu on Ibiza and in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, where she edits THE NEW//AFRICA magazine.