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OMC Gallery presents: HOW I SEE GERMANY
Work of more than 20 photographers from around the world has been chosen by the selection committee. On original prints the artists are visualizing their interpretation of the theme. The exhibition is show casing a wide spectrum of approaches and point of views. Styles differ between Documentary and Fine Art Photography.
When I think of the theme of "How I See Germany" and how I might have responded if I had been a photographer to submit images, I think that the image of industry and urbanization comes to mind. Whether true or not, it is an image that evokes the myth of Germany's famed precision, and also a post-World War II landscape in which cities had to be quickly rebuilt, often with less than aesthetic concerns. I know that there is so much more to Germany. Nonetheless, I feel that this image is prevalent perhaps reinforced by the images on display here that tend to focus on isolated individuals, or unoccupied urban scenes, or groups of people who feel a little alienated from one another. Overall, I think that most all the photographers have a keen eye for composition and are attuned to ironic gestures happened upon.
Tyler Stallings, Co-Curator, October 2008
Selections of images based upon regional boundaries always contain fragile threads from the weave of history. This is particularly true with Germany where an image of isolation or social alienation can be read to so many ways. The motivation for the staged portrait can be accurately explained by the photographer or teased out by the perceptive critic. The lonely streets, concrete-lined passages and people entrapped by their very surroundings reflect restrictive environments where people are not at ease. The taught tension in the portraits makes the participant ready to extract themselves from the scene and the fragmented photomontages continue this theme. This is a society, like any other, that can not be bound within a single frame.
Alan Griffiths, Co-Curator, October 2008
Very few images serve the German cliches and those which do, do so with irony.
Nothing is spectacular, but rather quiet.
Looking at the images, whose content mostly reflect the contemporary Germany, the majority of them seem to be taken dispassionately and from a distance, translated in a sophisticated art of unembellished observation.
Rolf Goellnitz, October 2008 |
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