Beate Gütschow
28 Oct - 04 Dec 2010
BEATE GÜTSCHOW
28.10.2010 - 4.12.2010
We are delighted to display the new work series of interiors alongside selected cityscape works by Beate Gütschow in her third exhibition.
Gütschow’s black and white photographic views set urban spaces into scene that strangely have the affect of the familiar. Majestic columns attach to minimalistic structures forming architectonic ensembles which are captivating in their clear structure and reduced formal terms. Wide squares open into the depth of the image. Solitary skyscrapers tower into the sky at the edge of the horizon conveying a feeling of the dimensions of these metropolises. In the monumental urban landscapes the single, isolated human silhouettes seem like tiny staffages in an otherwise unpopulated scenery.
Upon closer inspection the traces of decay become apparent: grassy tufts on paved squares, mounds of debris, scattered rubbish bags, upturned plant tubs and burnt out cars. The locations persist in a weightless silence - modernist utopias - ends and new beginnings at one and the same time.
The artist thereby manages to blur the border between reality and fiction. Irritation arises from the apparent authenticity of the images, for Gütschow takes up to a hundred analogue photographs, she has mainly photographed herself and then assembles them on computer. The interfaces remain invisible to the observer. The documentary fragments, mounted into an image truth do not correspond to any equivalent in reality.
In the work series of interior situations Beate Gütschow puts the validity of photography into question. In the artist?s studio the most differing and heterogeneous objects are arranged to specifically built compositions and set into scene. The image rhetoric of these works is oriented around parameters that appear to closely resemble product and advertising photography. Her works enthral through the precision taken in the arrangement of the things, the properties of their surfaces and carefully balanced lighting. By presenting them in aluminium light boxes the saturated colourfulness and visual quality are further intensified.
Profane everyday objects become mysterious and strange in this scenic organisation. Disparate associations and moods emerge from them.
Beate Gütschow (born 1970, in Mainz, lives in Berlin) studied under Bernhard Blume und Wolfgang Tillmans at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg, Germany. She was awarded the Otto Dix Prize for New Media in 2001, the Ars Viva Prize in Berlin 2006 and a stipend for the Villa Aurora, LA, USA in 2001. A retrospective at the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 2009/2010 precede solo exhibitions at the Haus am Waldsee, Berlin and the Kunsthalle Nürnberg, 2008, and a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, USA, 2007. Her works are present internationally in numerous museums.
28.10.2010 - 4.12.2010
We are delighted to display the new work series of interiors alongside selected cityscape works by Beate Gütschow in her third exhibition.
Gütschow’s black and white photographic views set urban spaces into scene that strangely have the affect of the familiar. Majestic columns attach to minimalistic structures forming architectonic ensembles which are captivating in their clear structure and reduced formal terms. Wide squares open into the depth of the image. Solitary skyscrapers tower into the sky at the edge of the horizon conveying a feeling of the dimensions of these metropolises. In the monumental urban landscapes the single, isolated human silhouettes seem like tiny staffages in an otherwise unpopulated scenery.
Upon closer inspection the traces of decay become apparent: grassy tufts on paved squares, mounds of debris, scattered rubbish bags, upturned plant tubs and burnt out cars. The locations persist in a weightless silence - modernist utopias - ends and new beginnings at one and the same time.
The artist thereby manages to blur the border between reality and fiction. Irritation arises from the apparent authenticity of the images, for Gütschow takes up to a hundred analogue photographs, she has mainly photographed herself and then assembles them on computer. The interfaces remain invisible to the observer. The documentary fragments, mounted into an image truth do not correspond to any equivalent in reality.
In the work series of interior situations Beate Gütschow puts the validity of photography into question. In the artist?s studio the most differing and heterogeneous objects are arranged to specifically built compositions and set into scene. The image rhetoric of these works is oriented around parameters that appear to closely resemble product and advertising photography. Her works enthral through the precision taken in the arrangement of the things, the properties of their surfaces and carefully balanced lighting. By presenting them in aluminium light boxes the saturated colourfulness and visual quality are further intensified.
Profane everyday objects become mysterious and strange in this scenic organisation. Disparate associations and moods emerge from them.
Beate Gütschow (born 1970, in Mainz, lives in Berlin) studied under Bernhard Blume und Wolfgang Tillmans at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg, Germany. She was awarded the Otto Dix Prize for New Media in 2001, the Ars Viva Prize in Berlin 2006 and a stipend for the Villa Aurora, LA, USA in 2001. A retrospective at the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 2009/2010 precede solo exhibitions at the Haus am Waldsee, Berlin and the Kunsthalle Nürnberg, 2008, and a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, USA, 2007. Her works are present internationally in numerous museums.