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11/3/2003

Wim Wenders

Haunch of Venison Yard, London

Pictures from the Surface of the Earth

Haunch of Venison is delighted to present a selection of images from Pictures from the Surface of the Earth, a touring exhibition of photographs by internationally renowned auteur filmmaker and artist Wim Wenders. Since 1983 Wenders has taken still images of towns and landscapes across the United States, Havana, the forests and temples in Japan, Jerusalem, the coast of Galilee and the deserted expanses of the Australian outback, which are loosely linked by their pervading sense of transience. The exhibition comes to London from the Museum Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin and the Guggenheim Bilbao, and will continue on to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, in June 2003.

The exhibition is curated by Heiner Bastian. Wim Wenders is a multi-faceted artist: an engraver, painter, actor, writer and one of the most successful contemporary filmmakers. He first made his name as a leading director of the New German Cinema in the 1970s, and became a cult figure on the international film scene by the mid 1980s. It was in 1983, while scouting for locations for Paris, Texas (1984), that he began to use photography as an art medium in its own right. In his own words, Photography lets you capture the essence of a place the first time you see it&. Before you see the picture, you feel it coming to you, you hear its call. Landscapes sometimes are dying to tell their stories, to pass them on&. Wenders photographs evoke the history and idiosyncrasies of each distinct place he visits. Shot straight on, his huge, wild landscapes of the American West are frequently void of humanity, with closer shots capturing signs pointing to places that have long since disappeared, empty shops and deserted gas stations.

His vast panoramic images of Australia reveal both a fascination with and humility toward the overwhelming dimensions of that country, while those of Havana juxtapose the city s past colonial grandeur with its crumbling present. Each image works within its own context, but together they elucidate the existential orientation of Wenders eye. Born in 1945 in Düsseldorf, Germany, Wenders first studied medicine and philosophy before dropping out in 1966 to move to Paris to study painting. In this period he became a frequent visitor to the Cinemathèque Française and one year later returned to Germany to enrol in the Higher School of Film & Television in Munich, while also writing film criticism for several magazines. Soon he was directing his own films and in 1977 he made The American Friend, a film that attracted the attention of Francis Ford Coppola, who then brought him to the US.

His many critically acclaimed films have included Wings of Desire (1987), Paris, Texas (1984) and Buena Vista Social Club (1999), as well as numerous short art-house films. Since 1986, his photographs have previously been exhibited internationally at venues including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark; the Shibuya Seibu Department Store, Tokyo and Goethe Institutes worldwide. Numerous books have been published on Wenders films, of his writings and on his photography including Written in the West (1987), Once (1993) and Wim Wenders: Photos (1996). A Wenders film retrospective will run concurrently with the exhibition at a London cinema.

A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
For further press information and visuals please contact:
Pernilla Holmes
Email: pernilla@haunchofvenison.com

Image: Mossy Ground, Nara, Japan, 2000, Photograph, 124 x 145 cm

Haunch of Venison, 6 Haunch of Venison Yard, London W1K 5ES
Phone: +44 (0)20 7495 5050, fax: +44 (0)20 7495 4050

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