Lichtecht

Edgar Lissel & Claus Stolz

March 20, 2021 — June 20, 2021

digital opening: March 19, 2021 — 7 p.m.

 

What is photography, in actual fact? This question, among others, is pursued by Edgar Lissel and Claus Stolz. Following entirely different paths, both explore the basic concept and the limits of the photographic, combining media archaeology approaches with contemporary technologies as they do so.

Edgar Lissel (*1965 in Northeim, lives in Vienna) follows a strongly conceptual approach. For example, he converts entire living spaces into pinhole cameras, so that the upside-down picture of the urban exterior on the image’s surface merges with the silhouettes of the furnishings inside. Alternatively, he avails himself of biological phenomena by using certain photosensitive bacteria in the image creation process. The growth process of these bacteria colonies makes pictures visible that would not be reproducible, since in a sense, under the artist’s guidance, they arose through the interplay of light, time, motion and space. Behind this there is a querying of photographic processes, within which Edgar Lissel abolishes the distance between himself and the photographic event that would result from the use of a camera, for instance. 

Whereas Edgar Lissel thus evinces a comprehensible closeness and directness to the photographic image, with Claus Stolz (*1963 in Mannheim, resides there likewise) the image bridges sometimes inconceivable distances: In his “Sunburns” there is nothing, apart from a lens that concentrates the sunlight, between the light source and the photographic material. An occurrence extended across approximately 150 kilometres becomes visible in its microscopic effect. This is a radical form of analogue photography, in which the artist plans the controlled fortuity, launches, observes and halts the process. Claus Stolz is committed to photographic experiments with material; the illustrative function immanent in photography is an incidental aspect to him. This latter comes to bear in his series “Kammerspiel”, however. What appears to be precise sharply photographed, luminously colourful blossoms against a dark ground reveals itself as bizarre still life arrangements. 

The exhibition is sponsored and supported by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Wüttemberg within the framework of the impulse program "Kunst trotz Abstand":

 

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