Von Lintel’s Photograms Travel to Paris
Following their recent show “UNIQUE,” Von Lintel Gallery’s Paris Photo booth (Nov. 14-17) expands upon the dynamism and potential of photographs created without negatives or cameras. The booth will feature a collection of innovative, poignant contemporary photographic works, all of which are non-editioned. The artists represented—John Chiara, Pierre Cordier & Gundi Falk, Agnes Eperjesi, Klea McKenna, Amanda Means, and Floris Neusüss—span generations and represent a variety of practices, yet share a common spirit of photographic ingenuity.
Their centerpiece is a large-scale photogram by Floris Neusüss, Der Weg in die Bilder. The German artist is known for his career-long dedication to photograms, images that result from exposing photo-sensitive paper to light. Neusüss revitalized the practice in the 1960s when he first exhibited his Körperfotogramms, full-body photograms created by posing nude women on top of photo paper. He sets the standard for traditional photogram-making, creating complex compositions consisting of multiple layers of positive and negative silhouettes of people and their surroundings. In a video for the V&A where Neusüss shares his practices, he says, “the question is, and this is possible with photograms, how to get away from the purely documentary aspect and make a picture of the window, about the window.”
Der Weg in die Bilder, which translates to “The way to the images,” depicts a man resting on his bike, standing before a set of gates with a few tree branches peeking in. Impressive not only due to the multiple processes involved, it is also admirable in its scale, standing at nearly nine feet by seven feet. At once graceful and ghostly, Neusüss manages to capture a fleeting moment, intimate motion; through flooding the composition with white light, he suggests the warmth of the sun.
These inventive, multiple-exposure methods to create unique photographic works serve as intriguing complements to the other artists on display, from Eperjesi’s color photograms to McKenna’s poetically folded compositions.
Visit Von Lintel Gallery at Paris Photo 2013, Stand C 37, on view November 14-17.
