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25/1/2012

Chris Engman

Clair Galerie, Munich

"My work calls attention to our misperceptions: the gulf that exists between how we see and how we think we see, how we think and how we think we think, and the inconstant and constructed nature of memory. My photographs are documentations of sculptures and installations but also records of actions and elaborate processes. They are acts of reverence and participation in a deep and reassuring natural order much larger than myself. " Chris Engman

Chris Engman's images are not quite what they seem. They make use of the language of landscape photography to create a feeling of familiarity on first glance. A second look suggests that not all is as it should be. By intervening in the natural landscape to create installations for the camera, Engman makes photographs that challenge the dichotomy between the natural and the artificial and are a subtle commentary on the act of taking a photograph.

Based in Seattle, Engman uses the vast empty landscapes of eastern Washington as both the backdrop and the focus of his images. Although his medium is photography, his artistic process is quite different from that of the 'traditional' landscape photographer. Rather than taking his camera out to respond to the environment around him, Engman's images begin with an idea. "I write about it, turn it over in my mind, and gradually the requirements for a site take shape." He does not look to sublimate the beauty of the natural landscape or to document or comment on its transformation. Instead Engman uses the landscape as his toolbox, as the raw material with which to give form to his ideas.

In some ways his approach could be considered anti-photographic. Rather than using the camera to record or document reality, he manipulates the physical world to create an image specifically for the camera. Self-described as "a sculptor or installation artist who uses photography as a tool", Engman's approach is closer to that of Land artists such as Robert Smithson or Richard Long than to much of contemporary landscape photography.

[ ... ] Whereas most manipulation in photography today is camouflaged or hidden, Engman's interventions are designed to remind us of the fact that photography—and perhaps even the act of looking itself—is inherently a process of visual manipulation. He uses the basic tools of the medium (perspective, framing, light and shadow) not as a comment on the authenticity of analog photography versus the fabrication of digital, but rather as a reminder that photography can never be an objective or truthful medium.

Marc Feustel, Author and Curator, Paris

Image: The Haul, 2006 Archival Inkjet Print 76 x 91 cm Edition of 6

Opening: Thursday, January 26 2012, 7 pm. In attendance of the artist.

Clair Galerie
Franz-Joseph-Str. 10 - Munich
Opening hours: wednesday – saturday 3pm-7pm and by appointment.
Free admission

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