The multiple parts of which a series consists allow not
only a linear or catalogue-like arrangement of images but also the
creation of tableaux, as in the diptychs of Thomas
Florschuetz and the compositions of Jochen
Gerz. The geometric repetition of similar or identical motifs in
photography reveals parallels with Minimal
Art, as clearly demonstrated by the works of Bernd and Hilla Becher
and Peter
Roehr, whose collages ultimately take their cue from motifs used in
commercial photography. The reductive, experimental photographic art of
the two Beuys students Imi
Knoebel and Imi
Giese also manifests a similar affinity to Minimal Art.
Raimund
Kummer, M & C (1), 1989
Deutsche
Bank Collection, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2006
But
a series need not only document chronological sequencing; it can also
analyse spatial relationships by presenting changing perspectives, as
demonstrated by Günther
Förg's exploration of architectural spaces and by the narrative
sequences of Raimund
Kummer und Hermann
Pitz.
Aside from the formal possibilities of structuring the
series, there also exist those of manipulating the photographic images
themselves. Works included in the exhibition employ such techniques of
alienation as paint-over, collage, stitching and digital manipulation,
that are in direct contrast to the historical tradition of documentary
photography. Used thus, photographic techniques become subservient to the
artist's concept of the image under creation, rather than to the
supposedly objective presentation of reality.
Hermann
Pitz, from the series Efeulösung II, 1979-84
Deutsche
Bank Collection, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2006
Photography
finally achieved equality with other, more traditional artistic techniques
though the above-mentioned development of the Diasec process. This allowed
the creation of colour images of hitherto inconceivable dimensions,
elevated photography to the status of painting's direct rival, and brought
to the medium an entirely new aesthetic and commercial success. Yet the
large format image is in important ways contrapuntal to the photographic
series. It stands for the static moment, which is charged with
significance precisely because of the image's monumentality and the
dazzling technology used to create it. In contrast to these aspects,
however, such images usually portray ordinary scenes or people that
achieve significance precisely through their being selected by the artist
as subjects for a large format photograph.
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Günther Förg, from the series Villa
Wittgenstein I-IV, 1987
Deutsche
Bank Collection
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© Galerie Bärbel Grässlin, Frankfurt
a. M.
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Delia Keller, Die Bauhaustreppe, 2000
Deutsche
Bank Collection
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© Delia Keller, VG Bild Kunst, Bonn
2006
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They typically portray the artist's friends, not
politicians or stars from the world of entertainment; barren landscapes,
not classical nature scenes. Whereas an unspectacular motif in a series by
Bernd and Hilla Becher is frequently perceived as an aesthetic phenomenon
and imbued with significance only by its being presented in such broad
variety, the Bechers' pupils, such as Thomas
Ruff and Axel
Hütte, draw attention to similar motifs by transforming them into
large format images.
Some large format motifs, such as the
portraits and the stock exchange pictures, are nevertheless presented as a
series. Yet their sheer size causes the observer's gaze to be focused much
more strongly on the individual image than is the case with a small format
series. Interior perspectives, for instance, are often so conceived as to
appear to open themselves up to the observer and invite him to enter into
them as if into an adjoining room – as in Günther Förg's photograph of the
semi-rotunda in the IG Farben Building, or Thomas Struth's of the
room in the Louvre, or Candida Höfer's exhibition rooms. Delia
Keller's full-length figures photographed from behind also appear to
invite the observer to step into the picture and ascend the staircase in
the Bauhaustreppe. And in a classical mode, Axel Hütte's diptych Solheimerjökull
I recalls Caspar
David Friedrich's The Monk by the Sea in its minimalist duality
of sky and earth. Horizontals are emphasised even more in the panorama – a
classical photographic motif represented in the exhibition by Martin
Liebscher's panned images "filmed" with a Practica adapted for the
purpose, and film director Wim
Wenders' Cinemascope images.
Exhibition
view, a work by Wim Wenders on the left,
works
by Katharina Mayer on the right Photo: Roberto Ortiz
Whereas
on the one hand the observer is overwhelmed by the sheer size and illusory
perspectives of the large format images, on the other he is able to
perceive in them a multitude of details with hitherto unimaginable clarity
– be it in a beer tent at the Oktoberfest or in the trading room of a
large bank. For the most part, our visual perception is directed by what
we want to see. The human eye is constantly roving, concentrating on one
detail only to move on to the next. Using these new reproduction
techniques, however, the camera is able to represent a large surface in
uniform focus of considerable depth.
Exhibition
view
on the left a work by
Martin Liebscher,
on the middle
wall a series by Imi Knoebel, Photo: Roberto Ortiz
Both
these photographic genres – large format images and series – enlarge our
visual capacities. They transform segments of the visible world into
two-dimensional images that are indeed more than meets the eye. Yet (and
this is the deeper meaning of the exhibition's title) only in that realm
which is inaccessible to both eye and camera, where seeing becomes
perception – where it is transformed from an optical process to experience
only after it has been refined by memory and desire – only there, "upon
that inward eye", is reality engendered.
[1]
[2]
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