Supervisions - New works. Ever since the digital technology noisily and overwhelmingly stormed onto the field of photography, the medium has had to wince repeatedly at the question about the degree to which its traditionally distinctive characteristic, namely an indissoluble connection to the factual, still remains capable of providing a meaningful basis for photographic discourse.
Ever since the digital technology noisily and overwhelmingly stormed onto the field
of photography, the medium has had to wince repeatedly at the question about the
degree to which its traditionally distinctive characteristic, namely an indissoluble
connection to the factual, still remains capable of providing a meaningful basis for
photographic discourse. In his astounding and precisely balanced pictural projects,
Andreas Gefeller offers evidence of the type of foundations which may be laid down
here without subsiding into anachronistic documentary fetishism. After the early
work complexes Halbwertszeiten (1996) and Soma (2000), he has achieved with the
large-scale series Supervisions (2002) a discovery of reality by means of a
construction which is both document and invention.
With the help of a tripod
attached to his body, the artist proceeds across a previously laid-out motific field
and records it, step by step, in up to 2,500 individual shots. The composite picture
which is subsequently generated digitally shows bird's eye views of sections of
parking lots, precast-concrete buildings or a lawn strewn with golf balls - in other
words, banal structural details, but such as we have never seen them before. The
works are thereby transformed into reflections upon the dialectical structure of
vision and visibilty in general: that which we see actually does not exist. And, for
a long time now, we have no longer been able to see that which does in fact exist.
Stephan Berg, Kunstverein Hannover
Opening: Friday 25 January 6pm
Thomas Rehbein Galerie
Aachener Str. 5 - Koln
Tues-Fri 11am-1pm + 2-6pm . Sat 12 midday - 6pm
Free admission