Camera Austria International
122 | 2013
- MICHELE ROBECCHI
Shirana Shahbazi: The Deceiving Truth - SHIRANA SHAHBAZI
- MARK DURDEN
Wolfgang Tillmans: The Freedoms of Photography - WOLFGANG TILLMANS
- VANESSA JOAN MÜLLER
Stephanie Kiwitt: Promise of Use Value - STEPHANIE KIWITT
- ÓSCAR FARIA
Heinz Peter Knes: Claro Intelecto - HEINZ PETER KNES
- T.J. DEMOS
Spectro-Aesthetics 2/4 The World Without Us
Preface
What can an individual image be, except good? This rhetorical-critical question repeatedly accompanies us when conceptualising the content of our magazine, where we attempt to foster discourse that clearly extends beyond the individual image—discourse that instead posits forms of documentation and, also, serial working approaches as the focus of reflection. The aim here is to consistently comprehend photographic practice as a form of critical commentary or as involvement in or visualisation of politics and everyday life.
Nevertheless, the case still remains that we repeatedly encounter pictures taken by artists whose works, though conceptually-strategically and self-evidently compiled as series in books and exhibitions for content-related reasons, indeed also offer lingering impressions and effects as individual images in and of themselves. They are photographs that captivate simply through their pictorial precision; works that primarily have impact due to their visuality rather than expressing something through approaches to visualising “something”; pictures that lay claim to an enduring validity while simultaneously eschewing both an immediate description of what we see there and a veiling theorisation.
The works of Wolfgang Tillmans are a good example of this. In no way is the cult surrounding images confirmed here—instead, it pays to grasp his photos as genre pictures. Expressed in his works is a form of (ethical) thinking about things, while at the same time the artist remains closely attuned to the object; images are not adjusted, nor are realities shifted. Tillmans’s photographs do not assume validity via a conceptive fundamental idea that interconnects the works but rather are, each “in itself”, precise descriptions of spaces and their atmospheres, which (especially in his more recent works) develop far beyond the visible depictions of surfaces and the related materiality. Sometimes this transpires by way of the pictorial carrier itself, the photo paper, and sometimes by way of the light active within, which references the many ends of the world and its inhabitants, whom Tillmans associates in this cycle.
The fact that behind each photographic image there has always been another image “waiting”, that (and how) photographic images offer reciprocal commentary, how their politics spans between the images, how a discourse is put into motion, how a thought finds its place in the images, and how social aspects are staged in the images—all of this rests in the discourse between “photo op” and “documentality”. Yet how do we behold one image? What takes shape in this particular detail? What transformations and translations take hold? On what form of presence and performativity is the one and only image based? It is not only Tillmans who codifies his photos with enigmatic stories—to be noted in the work of Heinz Peter Knes and Stephanie Kiwitt, for instance, is always a densification of that which in their series comes to play through references and acts of appropriation in the concrete individual image. They, too, know how to incisively organise in their works both form and aesthetics in the individual image.
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Camera Austria International 122 | 2013
Preface
What can an individual image be, except good? This rhetorical-critical question repeatedly accompanies us when conceptualising the content of our magazine, where we attempt to foster discourse that clearly extends beyond the individual image—discourse that instead posits forms of documentation and, also, serial working approaches as the focus of reflection. The aim here is to consistently comprehend photographic practice as a form of critical commentary or as involvement in or visualisation of politics and everyday life.
Nevertheless, the case still remains that we repeatedly encounter pictures taken by artists whose works, though conceptually-strategically and self-evidently compiled as series in books and exhibitions for content-related reasons, indeed also offer lingering impressions and effects as individual images in and of themselves. They are photographs that captivate simply through their pictorial precision; works that primarily have impact due to their visuality rather than expressing something through approaches to visualising “something”; pictures that lay claim to an enduring validity while simultaneously eschewing both an immediate description of what we see there and a veiling theorisation.
The works of Wolfgang Tillmans are a good example of this. In no way is the cult surrounding images confirmed here—instead, it pays to grasp his photos as genre pictures. Expressed in his works is a form of (ethical) thinking about things, while at the same time the artist remains closely attuned to the object; images are not adjusted, nor are realities shifted. Tillmans’s photographs do not assume validity via a conceptive fundamental idea that interconnects the works but rather are, each “in itself”, precise descriptions of spaces and their atmospheres, which (especially in his more recent works) develop far beyond the visible depictions of surfaces and the related materiality. Sometimes this transpires by way of the pictorial carrier itself, the photo paper, and sometimes by way of the light active within, which references the many ends of the world and its inhabitants, whom Tillmans associates in this cycle.
The fact that behind each photographic image there has always been another image “waiting”, that (and how) photographic images offer reciprocal commentary, how their politics spans between the images, how a discourse is put into motion, how a thought finds its place in the images, and how social aspects are staged in the images—all of this rests in the discourse between “photo op” and “documentality”. Yet how do we behold one image? What takes shape in this particular detail? What transformations and translations take hold? On what form of presence and performativity is the one and only image based? It is not only Tillmans who codifies his photos with enigmatic stories—to be noted in the work of Heinz Peter Knes and Stephanie Kiwitt, for instance, is always a densification of that which in their series comes to play through references and acts of appropriation in the concrete individual image. They, too, know how to incisively organise in their works both form and aesthetics in the individual image.
“The opportunity to physically reconfigure and market oneself may also be interpreted as yielding personal liberation beyond adaption to external pressures,” as Vanessa Joan Müller finds thematised in Stephanie Kiwitt’s series “GYM”, which also implies finding an appropriate photographic form for these attempts at reconfiguration. Of issue here is not only the seriality of this recurring and repeatedly renewing exertion as a documentary “motif” in the series; playing out here is also a conflict (between the body and the tuning thereof) that appears as a formal element in the individual images. An act of stepping out of the picture or a departure from the pictures is suggested, the alternation between colour and black-and-white, the varying repetition—the image emerges as an attempt to find a form and, by way of this form, to position the bodies as a performance instead of portraying them. Óscar Faria’s text on the work of Heinz Peter Knes, who in his photographs pictorially orbits a cabin and its disappearance, dedicating himself to a downright archaic topic with this “migration of forms”, especially traces the disparate moments: revealing a new story with each new picture, becoming enmeshed in contradictions, beginning again from another perspective. “there are no credible witnesses, nor the faintest clue.” The construed trails cannot be verified, the story wants to interlink but then again not, each image opens up a new possible context which, however, is reluctant to be contextualised. It is as if an image itself had sent the postcard: “I hate my past and that of others.” The present that remains is the present of the image and renews its performance.
Shirana Shahbazi’s artistic practice—ensuing from the tradition of iconography in her homeland of Iran, which it seeks to associate with the pictorial traditions of the “West” (studio portraiture, still lifes, landscape painting)—entails more than complex pictorial references. Beyond their meaning, her works are also distinguished by an “intrinsic beauty”, as Michele Robecchi writes. The visuality of photography can only be evaluated based on a multifaceted perspective, which would also encompass the term beauty. The duality of Shahbazi’s works—appearing both familiar and foreign in equal measure, both codified by a history and embodying a strong aesthetic presence—likewise aims to trigger a direct, almost physical reaction to her photographs.
We are pleased to report that we are now working together with a new distribution partner: Motto Distribution in Berlin, which through its collaboration with over 150 publishers represents a broad palette of art-related books, including many experimental book projects. Also, our new website recently went online, offering us enhanced opportunities for communicating and documenting our work and leading to more extensive information. You will soon find us at I Never Read, Art Book Fair in Basel (CH) and at Rencontres d’Arles (FR). Further presentations of the current issue of Camera Austria International will take place at Art Basel and LISTE (Basel).
Maren Lübbke-Tidow, Reinhard Braun
and the Camera Austria team
June 2013
Entries
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Shirana Shahbazi: The Deceiving Truth
Shirana Shahbazi’s work (…) possesses technical and philosophically distinctive traits, and although very visible, they are a little more difficult to pinpoint. Shahbazi has repeatedly displayed strong social sensibility, but the notion that would see her as a plain political artist is challenged by her dialogue with classic art forms like studio portraits, abstract shapes, and still lifes. The profoundness of her insight and the conceptual approach that dominates her efforts are contrasted by the creation of images that provide the extra option of being appreciated, on top of their meaning, solely for their intrinsic beauty. Her installation method, which involves the simultaneous coexistence of a variety of subjects shot in different times and places, and reproduced in different sizes, generates all-embracing environments conspicuous for the presence of many centre points. Finally, her recurrent juxtaposition of wall paintings, hand-knotted carpets, and wallpapers disrupts media categorisation, pointing towards an awareness that the visual world can be evaluated to the full only through a multifaceted perspective on photography. Defined by the duality of looking familiar and unfamiliar at the same time and a rich visual vocabulary governed by a sharp brain, Shahbazi’s work acts a reminder that making art which everybody understands is not about being literal but about creating something that arouses a response.
Text feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, pp. 9–20.
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SHIRANA SHAHBAZI
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 9–20.
Doppelseite / spread: Shirana Shahbazi, S. / pp. 14–15. -
SHIRANA SHAHBAZI
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 9–20.
Shirana Shahbazi, [Komposition-30-2011], 2011. C-print, verschiedene Größen / dimensions variable. -
SHIRANA SHAHBAZI
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 9–20.
Shirana Shahbazi, [Komposition-19-2011], 2011. C-print, verschiedene Größen / dimensions variable. -
SHIRANA SHAHBAZI
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 9–20.
Shirana Shahbazi, [Klausenpass-01-2011], 2011. Silbergelatine-Print / silver gelatin print, verschiedene Größen / dimensions variable.
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Wolfgang Tillmans: The Freedoms of Photography
Tillmans’s photography is very much an affirmation of the sensuality of being in the world. Part of the pleasure before his work—and pleasure is key—is the way in which we encounter the joy in both the sensuous form of photography itself and in the beauty of the things in the world that photography can so vividly describe. He never shies away from beautiful things. Indeed, the overriding note of his photography is one of affirmation and celebration. For over a decade, Tillmans has also explored the abstract formal possibilities of photography. In presentations of his work we now shift between the often unexpected formal beauty and intensities of the photograph as an abstract picture and the sensuality of his rich, evocative, and distinctive portrayal of aspects and moments from the contemporary world.
Text feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, pp. 21–32.
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WOLFGANG TILLMANS
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 21–32.
Wolfgang Tillmans, Outer Ear, 2012; lovers, 2009. Aus der Serie / from the series: Neue Welt, 2012. -
WOLFGANG TILLMANS
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 21–32.
Wolfgang Tillmans, Headlight (f), 2012. Aus der Serie / from the series: Neue Welt, 2012. -
WOLFGANG TILLMANS
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 21–32.
Doppelseite / spread: Wolfgang Tillmans, S. / pp. 22–23.
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Stephanie Kiwitt: Promise of Use Value
On a visual level, Kiwitt—who studied in Leipzig and spent several years in Brussels—pursues a decidedly cool and ostensibly objective approximation of her subject. Her photos, generally presented in series, are distinguished by a diagnosing gaze that adapts the cold and calculating logic of our economic present to fathom its fissures. Her impressions of the places where society’s re-formatting according to neo-liberal principles has been absorbed into everyday life shroud the seductive surfaces with a matte gloss, from which everything—both critique and empathy—seems to pearl off. The brilliant surface finish of the advertising posters, the Photoshop-generated highlights on the faces and bodies, the pointedly implemented streaks of chrome on the sports equipment—all this is missing from Kiwitt’s gym shots. Paradoxically, it is precisely this lack of retrospectively added visual enhancement that makes man and machine seem technical in equal measure. This alienation also intensifies a firmly object-focused gaze, which views both equipment and gym-goers as clocked working units and fails to really differentiate between polycarbonate cladding and breathable clothing. And when the motion embodying the spirit and purpose of a health club is arrested—its very trace utterly removed from the picture—the bodies ossify in an artificial pose, while the unused equipment almost appears to take on human features.
Text feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, pp. 33–43.
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STEPHANIE KIWITT
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 33–44.
Stephanie Kiwitt, aus der Serie / from the series: GYM, 2012/13. Inkjet Print, 87 × 60 cm. -
STEPHANIE KIWITT
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 33–44.
Doppelseite / spread: Stephanie Kiwitt, S. / pp. 38–39. -
STEPHANIE KIWITT
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 33–44.
Stephanie Kiwitt, aus der Serie / from the series: GYM, 2012/13. Inkjet Print, 87 × 60 cm. -
STEPHANIE KIWITT
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 33–44.
Stephanie Kiwitt, aus der Serie / from the series: GYM, 2012/13. Inkjet Print, 87 × 60 cm. -
STEPHANIE KIWITT
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 33–44.
Stephanie Kiwitt, aus der Serie / from the series: GYM, 2012/13. Inkjet Print, 87 × 60 cm.
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Heinz Peter Knes: Claro Intelecto
the beat of “New Dawn” by Claro Intelecto still echoed in my ears, covered by a hood. i did not remember the hours. i had stayed up late. blue kisses and Friedrich Hölderlin’s verses memorised years ago. the continuous beat while the past burned before my eyes. i returned there countless times. i sought an abandonment. an ethics. an odour of burnt bramble bushes and wood was now inhaled. the flames mixed with the dawn, with the years, the seasons. motionless, i recalled being in there, alone. a cigarette butt forgotten between the fingers. the greasy parka shinning on the forearm. it was rather cold, despite the fire that raged to a considerable height: the cabin stood, sublime, in a final combustion. the memory of those days: headphones at top volume and the city vanishing behind, moving towards the shelter. coffee, cigarettes, a few eggs to scramble: enough to go through the hours. we talked of revolution: the peasant uprising of 1846. and of Jakub Szela: the desire for another life stirred our hearts. we exchanged books and passions. we wished the conversation could last until the following day. we were friends, few, happy: we dreamed of changing the world.
Text feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, pp. 45–56.
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HEINZ PETER KNES
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 45–56.
Doppelseite / spread: Heinz Peter Knes, S. / pp. 52–53. -
HEINZ PETER KNES
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 45–56.
Heinz Peter Knes -
HEINZ PETER KNES
Künstlerbeitrag / Artist feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, S. / pp. 45–56.
Heinz Peter Knes
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Spectro-Aesthetics 2/4 The World Without Us
Would ghosts haunt a world without us? Investigating the end of time when there will be no more thought to think it, Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (2007) offers no answer to that question but it does set up the terms of its consideration. The book attempts to comprehend the logical consequences of the Enlightenment’s disenchantment of the world through reason and refuses to defend against the threat of nihilism by safeguarding the experience of meaning. Yet rather than positioning nihilism as the heroic conquering of metaphysical thought, or as an act of empty negativity that represents a “calamitous diminishment” of the world’s significance deprived of human values, Brassier positions it as a “speculative opportunity”.¹
While primarily a philosophical text without ecological reference, it can be no coincidence that Nihil Unbound comes to us in the context of the sixth mass species extinction event, which we are living through right now. Owing to a combination of climate change, environmental destruction, and the spread of humans worldwide, we could see the die-off of roughly half the world’s plants, animals, and birds in the next seventy years. Such an eventuality poses questions such as what a world would be like without its vibrant biodiversity; and ultimately, if that biodiversity is life-sustaining for humans, what a world without us would be like.²¹ Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. xi.
² See Alan Weisman, The World Without Us (London: Virgin, 2008).
Text feature in Camera Austria International 122/2013, pp. 71–72.
Forum
Presented by Igor Eškinja:
ALEJANDRO VIDAL
MIRIAM O`CONNOR
PETER PUKLUS
KASIA KLIMPEL
LAURIE KANG
SANDRA VITALJIĆ
Exhibitions
Nouvelles Impressions de Raymond Roussel
Palais de Tokyo, Paris
ANNE FAUCHERET
Former West: Documents, Constellations, Prospects
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
FATOŞ ÜSTEK
Haris Epaminonda: South of Sun
Kunsthaus Zürich
ANKE HOFFMANN
Rosemarie Trockel: A Cosmos
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
New Museum, New York
Serpentine Gallery, London
STEFANIE SEIBOLD
Rineke Dijkstra: The Krazy House
MMK, Frankfurt/Main
KERSTIN STREMMEL
Ruins in Reserve
Tate Modern Project Space, London
STEFAAN VERVOORT
Live Cinema/Manon de Boer: Resonating Surfaces – A Trilogy
Philadelphia Museum of Art
NICOLAS LINNERT
Ahlam Shibli: Phantom Home
MACBA, Barcelona
Jeu de Paume, Paris
Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto
ALBERTO MARTÍN
Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc: Kannibalen
Bielefelder Kunstverein
BRITTA PETERS
Lewis Baltz
kestnergesellschaft, Hannover
Albertina, Wien
NORA THEISS
Power! Photos! Freedom!
FotoMuseum Provincie Antwerpen
TACO HIDDE BAKKER
Moments Measured
LACMA, Los Angeles
SANDRA WAGNER
I am also… Douglas Gourdon
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
ELLIE ARMON AZOULAY
Fotos. Österreichische Fotografien von den 1930ern bis heute
21er Haus, Wien
CHRISTINA NATLACEN
Concrete. Fotografie und Architektur
Fotomuseum Winterthur
HUBERTUS ADAM
Josef Dabernig: Panorama
Kunsthaus Graz
REINHARD BRAUN
59. Internationales Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen: Flatness. Kino nach dem Internet
KATRIN MUNDT
art is: new art. Reflections on Schönberg in contemporary art
Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien
YUKI HIGASHINO
Books
Ulrike Lienbacher: nude, pensive
Fotohof edition, Salzburg 2012
KRZYSZTOF PIJARKSI
Vera Brandner: Das Bild der Anderen / Picturing Others
Fotohof edition, Salzburg 2012
RUTH SONDEREGGER
THE REVOLVING BOOKSHELF
Hans-Dieter Schmidt / Evelyn Richter: Entwicklungswunder Mensch, Urania-Verlag, Leipzig / Jena / Berlin 1980
Friedl Kubelka: Porträt Louise Anna Kubelka, Edition Fotohof, Salzburg 1998
Judith Butler: Psyche der Macht. Das Subjekt der Unterwerfung, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt/Main 2001
JAN WENZEL
Imprint
Dank / Aknowledgements:
Carmen Brunner, Mark Durden, T. J. Demos, Igor Eškinja, Óscar Faria, Winfried Heininger, Sven Johne, Laurie Kang, Stephanie Kiwitt, Kasia Klimpel, Heinz Peter Knes, Eva Möller, Vanessa Joan Müller, Frauke Nelißen, Miriam O’Connor, Peter Puklus, Michele Robecchi, Fadoa Schurer, Shirana Shahbazi, Wolfgang Tillmans, Slaven Tolj, Alejandro Vidal, Sandra Vitaljić, Veronika Werkner, Stefanie Zangerl.
Copyright © 2013
Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Nachdruck nur mit vorheriger Genehmigung des Verlags. / All rights reserved. No parts of this magazine may be reproduced without publisher’s permission.
Für übermittelte Manuskripte und Originalvorlagen wird keine Haftung übernommen. / Camera Austria International does not assume any responsibility for submitted texts and original materials.
ISBN 978-3-900508-94-4
ISSN 1015 1915
GTIN 4 19 23106 1600 5 00121