Mirko Martin / Melanie Martin
08 Oct - 04 Dec 2011
MIRKO MARTIN / MELANIE MARTIN
Talents 25 . In Broad Day
8 October - 4 December 2011
"What you have to do is enter the fiction of America, enter America as fiction. It is, indeed, on this fictive basis that it dominates the world." Jean Baudrillard
On the streets of Los Angeles: police raids and arrests, accidents and injuries, glamour and homelessness. It’s all part of everyday life in the big city. Mirko Martin prowls the urban landscape like a hunter, documenting the events of daily existence. But his photographs raise numerous questions. Why is a burning man walking down the street? Where have the victims of a car crash gone? Why are people lying in groups in the middle of the sidewalk? And why are the passers-by ignoring all the catastrophes? Mirko Martin’s photographs reveal absurd, spectacular, and inexplicable situations that are removed completely from the realm of familiar, everyday experience, leading us to wonder: Are these scenes real or staged? Martin plays with the viewer’s voyeurism and expectations. In his photographs, documentary photography collides with staged photography, and reality seems just as theatrical as the dramatically illuminated film sets of Hollywood. Indeed everything in the image becomes part of the stage. In this tension-filled ambiguity, reality is played off against fiction, challenging the viewer’s imagination.
The moments of perplexity in Mirko Martin’s series "Out of a clear blue sky" arise from the combination of authentic street scenes with film set elements, including costumed actors and staged catastrophes set in the public space. None of the photographs have a title, and Martin gives no indication as to their origins, thus leaving open the question of what is authentic and what is constructed. Martin utilizes this concrete concept of passive staging in his photographs in a calm, dispassionate manner—despite the, in some cases, spectacular subject matter. His visual language, based on the use of wide shots and broad perspectives, corresponds closely to the images produced by TV and surveillance cameras and thus makes reference to the omnipresence of the mass media in Los Angeles and beyond. In this world of nonstop observation, where every event is documented and simulated, our media-saturated experience superimposes itself on our perception of reality. Mirko Martin’s photographs, with their ambivalent relationship to the representation of reality, suggest that the real and the fictional are not mutually exclusive. If one wants to invest complete faith in images—and in photography as a medium of authenticity—contradictions and perplexities are bound to arise.
In both his photographic practice and his motivations, Mirko Martin stands in the tradition of classic Street Photography. Most of his photographs were taken on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, the neighborhood with the highest concentration of homeless people in the United States. But since Martin also uses the film industry as a source for his visual material, his work also makes clear references to staged photography—even in scenes that were not actually staged. The pioneers of Street Photography were careful to maintain a sense of immediacy and to focus on the unique, extraordinary moment. Mirko Martin’s large-format works, in contrast, employ a visual concept that is much closer to painting. The compositions are not fixed on a singular visual event but express the simultaneity of multiple occurrences: diverse elements are arranged into a harmonious, self-contained whole that bears little resemblance to traditional documentary photography. In some cases, the people in the photographs even appear to be posing for the camera. In the series “Out of a clear blue sky,” photographic tableaux are interspersed with small-format pictures in a snapshot aesthetic that appear to verify the truth content of the larger panoramic photographs, whose intricate compositions hint at staging.
Talents 25 . In Broad Day
8 October - 4 December 2011
"What you have to do is enter the fiction of America, enter America as fiction. It is, indeed, on this fictive basis that it dominates the world." Jean Baudrillard
On the streets of Los Angeles: police raids and arrests, accidents and injuries, glamour and homelessness. It’s all part of everyday life in the big city. Mirko Martin prowls the urban landscape like a hunter, documenting the events of daily existence. But his photographs raise numerous questions. Why is a burning man walking down the street? Where have the victims of a car crash gone? Why are people lying in groups in the middle of the sidewalk? And why are the passers-by ignoring all the catastrophes? Mirko Martin’s photographs reveal absurd, spectacular, and inexplicable situations that are removed completely from the realm of familiar, everyday experience, leading us to wonder: Are these scenes real or staged? Martin plays with the viewer’s voyeurism and expectations. In his photographs, documentary photography collides with staged photography, and reality seems just as theatrical as the dramatically illuminated film sets of Hollywood. Indeed everything in the image becomes part of the stage. In this tension-filled ambiguity, reality is played off against fiction, challenging the viewer’s imagination.
The moments of perplexity in Mirko Martin’s series "Out of a clear blue sky" arise from the combination of authentic street scenes with film set elements, including costumed actors and staged catastrophes set in the public space. None of the photographs have a title, and Martin gives no indication as to their origins, thus leaving open the question of what is authentic and what is constructed. Martin utilizes this concrete concept of passive staging in his photographs in a calm, dispassionate manner—despite the, in some cases, spectacular subject matter. His visual language, based on the use of wide shots and broad perspectives, corresponds closely to the images produced by TV and surveillance cameras and thus makes reference to the omnipresence of the mass media in Los Angeles and beyond. In this world of nonstop observation, where every event is documented and simulated, our media-saturated experience superimposes itself on our perception of reality. Mirko Martin’s photographs, with their ambivalent relationship to the representation of reality, suggest that the real and the fictional are not mutually exclusive. If one wants to invest complete faith in images—and in photography as a medium of authenticity—contradictions and perplexities are bound to arise.
In both his photographic practice and his motivations, Mirko Martin stands in the tradition of classic Street Photography. Most of his photographs were taken on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, the neighborhood with the highest concentration of homeless people in the United States. But since Martin also uses the film industry as a source for his visual material, his work also makes clear references to staged photography—even in scenes that were not actually staged. The pioneers of Street Photography were careful to maintain a sense of immediacy and to focus on the unique, extraordinary moment. Mirko Martin’s large-format works, in contrast, employ a visual concept that is much closer to painting. The compositions are not fixed on a singular visual event but express the simultaneity of multiple occurrences: diverse elements are arranged into a harmonious, self-contained whole that bears little resemblance to traditional documentary photography. In some cases, the people in the photographs even appear to be posing for the camera. In the series “Out of a clear blue sky,” photographic tableaux are interspersed with small-format pictures in a snapshot aesthetic that appear to verify the truth content of the larger panoramic photographs, whose intricate compositions hint at staging.