Elisabeth Neudörfl
23 Nov 2013 - 14 Feb 2014
Elisabeth Neudörfl
Gladbeck, 2013
Die Serie besteht aus 9 Silbergelatineprints, Handabzug, 18 x 27 cm, gerahmt;
und 4 Silbergelatineprints, 24 x 32 cm, gerahmt
Gladbeck, 2013
Die Serie besteht aus 9 Silbergelatineprints, Handabzug, 18 x 27 cm, gerahmt;
und 4 Silbergelatineprints, 24 x 32 cm, gerahmt
ELISABETH NEUDÖRFL
unseen aspects of a city
23 November 2013 - 14 February 2014
Elisabeth Neudörfl's work was once described as a topographic approach to documentary photography. Whether in Super Pussy Bangkok (2006), Habitat (2010) or E.D.S.A. (2009) – in all photographic series of the last years she combines pictures of places, streets and landscapes with the events that have taken place there. Her method is that of exclusion – she shows places and leaves the viewer the associations to the things that remain invisible. By letting architecture and urban structures speak for themselves, she points out social behavior, historical events or social structures which are connected with the places. In one of her texts on the method of conceptual documentation she brings her way of working to the point: A fundamental strategy of photography is exclusion.
In our third solo exhibition Elisabeth Neudörfl shows Buchstadt Leipzig and Gladbeck, two new works from 2013, and in the cinema room the digital photoedition der Stadt (1998).
Buchstadt Leipzig, a series of 68 photographs in the format 42 x 28 cm, is based on a list of street names, which are named after book printers, publishers and booksellers. Elisabeth Neudörfl writes:
There is no substantive connection between the street names and the streets themselves. There is no substantive connection between the street name and the photographs I have taken of that street. The photograph has no 'meaning' in terms of the street name or the person after which the street was named. However, there is a direct connection between the photograph and the location. How the street is named, does not matter for it. Just therefore the street name is next to each image; in the list the meaning of the name giver is explained. Using the example of the only woman on the list, Eva-Maria Buch, it becomes clear that my interest in Leipzig as a book city mixes with other interests. The bookseller Eva-Maria Buch was executed as a member of the 'Red Chapel' and resistance fighter against the Nazis in 1943; in 1950 the street was named after her in Leipzig.
For Gladbeck, a series with 9 b/w photographs, Elisabeth Neudörfl went 25 years back to the scene of the bank robbery in Gladbeck.
On August 16, 1988 Dieter Degowski and Hans-Jürgen Rösner robbed a Deutsche-Bank branch in Gladbeck. This was followed by a hostage and a three-day odyssey through the Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands. Degowski and Rösner were growing up in close proximity to the bank and have lived there before the raid.
The work 'Gladbeck' binds the deed back to its starting point. After 25 years Gladbeck looks back from the scene to the events prior to the raid. At the same time it negotiates the historic site as a motif in photography: Shown is the business center Rentfort-North, which housed the bank, as well as the road Lehmstich, in which Rösner grew up and the Berliner Straße, where he lived to the time of the crime with his girlfriend.
In the cinema room Elisabeth Neudörfl shows the digital and interactive work der Stadt, in which a large number of black/white photographs are randomly strung together on the big screen: development areas, downtown scenarios, parks, construction sites and traffic. der Stadt is both a photographic and digital work. The photographically approach is the demure manner of taking an image in distant attitude - digitally using a program that puts the photographic images in ever new contexts, strung the images together as an endless band and let the viewer participate in the photographic project: He can manipulate the images. He can 'enter' the pictures, enlarge details from the complete view, move within the images. The viewer becomes an accomplice.
unseen aspects of a city
23 November 2013 - 14 February 2014
Elisabeth Neudörfl's work was once described as a topographic approach to documentary photography. Whether in Super Pussy Bangkok (2006), Habitat (2010) or E.D.S.A. (2009) – in all photographic series of the last years she combines pictures of places, streets and landscapes with the events that have taken place there. Her method is that of exclusion – she shows places and leaves the viewer the associations to the things that remain invisible. By letting architecture and urban structures speak for themselves, she points out social behavior, historical events or social structures which are connected with the places. In one of her texts on the method of conceptual documentation she brings her way of working to the point: A fundamental strategy of photography is exclusion.
In our third solo exhibition Elisabeth Neudörfl shows Buchstadt Leipzig and Gladbeck, two new works from 2013, and in the cinema room the digital photoedition der Stadt (1998).
Buchstadt Leipzig, a series of 68 photographs in the format 42 x 28 cm, is based on a list of street names, which are named after book printers, publishers and booksellers. Elisabeth Neudörfl writes:
There is no substantive connection between the street names and the streets themselves. There is no substantive connection between the street name and the photographs I have taken of that street. The photograph has no 'meaning' in terms of the street name or the person after which the street was named. However, there is a direct connection between the photograph and the location. How the street is named, does not matter for it. Just therefore the street name is next to each image; in the list the meaning of the name giver is explained. Using the example of the only woman on the list, Eva-Maria Buch, it becomes clear that my interest in Leipzig as a book city mixes with other interests. The bookseller Eva-Maria Buch was executed as a member of the 'Red Chapel' and resistance fighter against the Nazis in 1943; in 1950 the street was named after her in Leipzig.
For Gladbeck, a series with 9 b/w photographs, Elisabeth Neudörfl went 25 years back to the scene of the bank robbery in Gladbeck.
On August 16, 1988 Dieter Degowski and Hans-Jürgen Rösner robbed a Deutsche-Bank branch in Gladbeck. This was followed by a hostage and a three-day odyssey through the Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands. Degowski and Rösner were growing up in close proximity to the bank and have lived there before the raid.
The work 'Gladbeck' binds the deed back to its starting point. After 25 years Gladbeck looks back from the scene to the events prior to the raid. At the same time it negotiates the historic site as a motif in photography: Shown is the business center Rentfort-North, which housed the bank, as well as the road Lehmstich, in which Rösner grew up and the Berliner Straße, where he lived to the time of the crime with his girlfriend.
In the cinema room Elisabeth Neudörfl shows the digital and interactive work der Stadt, in which a large number of black/white photographs are randomly strung together on the big screen: development areas, downtown scenarios, parks, construction sites and traffic. der Stadt is both a photographic and digital work. The photographically approach is the demure manner of taking an image in distant attitude - digitally using a program that puts the photographic images in ever new contexts, strung the images together as an endless band and let the viewer participate in the photographic project: He can manipulate the images. He can 'enter' the pictures, enlarge details from the complete view, move within the images. The viewer becomes an accomplice.