TRACING – ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF MAN AND NATURE IN THE WORK OF ULRICH GEBERT
Amerika Part III, 2007, Triptych, c-prints, installation view Klemm's Gallery Berlin
In my view, two important elements must be considered if this question is to be answered in full. Firstly, what links the individual picture to the following pictures in a given series, how does the interplay between it and the rest of the series work, and what relationship exists between the different series? This applies to both the formal and the immanent aspects of the pictures. And secondly, in terms of content this time: Is it possible to discern a link between Gebert’s individual works and series that points to his more fundamental concern?
Looking for the thread running through Gerbert’s works, then, in terms of both form and content one finds the relationship of Man to his environment, specifically to Nature – both civilised and “untouched”. Again and again, the pictures feature artificially altered, categorised, instrumentalised and functionalised landscapes whose relationship to humankind is examined. Formally speaking, the quality of the photographs in themselves and in their interplay with each other consists of relating Man and Nature to one another. The beauty of an orange is as enticing as the unreal setting of a combat exercise is disturbing; the formal impact of a pruned hedge or the geometric shape of a tree is equal to that of the worker trimming the hedge. In terms of content, they ask: How does an individual, a group, a society or an entire (western) culture inscribe itself into its habitat? How does it deal with that habitat? This can be illustrated using concrete examples.
Freischneider (Strimmer, literally “free-cutter”, 2004) functions above all via the multiply meaningful word composition of the title, a typical and peculiar feature of the German language. In the case of other pairings, this wealth of meaning has led original German word creations to find their way into other languages, like kindergarten, zeitgeist, blitzkrieg, leitmotiv and doppelganger, to mention just a few. “Freischneider” (which can refer both to the tool and to the men using it) contains both “liberate” and “cut off” or “cut away”. We “free” ourselves of the rampantly growing plants and “cut back” their dominance: the “freischneiders” themselves are equipped with helmets and visors for the battle, their facial expressions steeled for combat. Us against Nature.
Typus (2005) shows no people, but the form of the work itself is subject to purely human ordering principles: Nature not physically pruned back but symbolically domesticated by the categorisation and control exerted by successors to Alexander von Humboldt. On a primarily metaphorical level, these two early series reflect the complex relationship between Man and Nature.
In Sie und Wir (Them and Us, 2006) the same complexity is dealt with in concrete terms. On the one hand, Nature appears to have become purely functional. The setting for military combat exercises is artificial and unworkable, the houses are dummies, defenceless nature is subjected to the destruction of a pretend war. The soldiers, running over bunker-like roofs and scaling walls, contrast with those being let down on ropes into a German forest landscape; the bold green of the trees with the grey of the battle zone; the ray of light falling through the glassless windows and the elegance of the male bodies are juxtaposed with the violence of the military exercise.
Of Gebert’s works to date, Amerika (2007) plays most clearly with this contrast. On the one side, orange trees, as they have grown for millennia, heavy with ripe fruit, all the force and beauty of Nature. On the other, the losers of civilisation: illegal immigrants, living in conditions below civilised standards and gathering in the fruits of Nature for those in power. From metaphorical cutting back, then, to the union of consumerism and oppression. This development illustrates the fact that for Gebert, Nature is increasingly becoming a place where the ways people treat each other, the mechanisms of their power and control over one another, are played out.
Just as the topos of Man in relation to Nature was the quintessential Romantic motif, used by artists of the period to oppose the alienating effects of industrialisation, for Gebert, this relationship seems to become a medium through which to describe the role of the individual within globalisation and turbo-capitalism. It is clearly about finding pictures capable of saying something about his chosen theme that cannot be communicated via language, as a way of pointing to a broader context that may go beyond the actual object in question. Whereas Romanticism sought the “re-uniting” of Man with Nature, wishing to repair the fraught links between the two, in Gebert’s work this relationship appears as fundamentally disturbed, possibly even destroyed. In spite of this, his position seems neither cynical nor melancholy. His photographs neither communicate resignation in the face of the world’s depravity nor reinforce a longing for better times and worlds.
With their often very small formats, Gebert’s photographs make do without grand gestures and reinforce a sense of intimacy. In view of the widespread tendency among today’s artists to trust in first impressions, a conceivable and only slightly different scenario for these works would be the following: several large-format photographs that capture the viewer as soon as s/he walks into the room. Clear lines, stark contrasts. But Gebert deserves great respect for the way, so early in his career, he places his trust in the slowness of perception and comprehension and foregoes fast results. As if he had said to himself: “The viewer should think more than just ‘ah, this is about exploitation’ or ‘ah, this is about violence’”. Instead, he takes his subjects seriously. He takes his viewers seriously, too, and forces them to expose themselves to a direct, personal encounter with the work. In my view, this encounter is the greatest strength of Gebert’s art, because it duplicates the real situation of each individual: One can only encounter the world if one exposes oneself to it.