Klosterfelde

Armin Linke

01 Sep - 03 Nov 2007

Thongil Street Pyongyang North Korea (2005), c-print, 50 x 60 cm
Armin Linke

Klosterfelde Gallery is very happy to announce a solo exhibition with Italian artist Armin Linke. The works from between 1998 and 2005 resemble a cross-section of the extremely versatile oeuvre of the artist from Milan. On extensive travels throughout the world, Linke has used both film and photo-graphy to document phenomena of globalization, of the transformation of cities into megalpolises and the resulting social and political con- sequences on human living conditions. Linkes images investigate our contemporary landscapes and their effect on our changed perception of space.

At the same time, his choice of motifs is not genre specific - cityscapes, like the sealed-off Genoa at the 2001 G8 summit are as much part of the repertoire as landscapes, depictions of people (Kofi Annan sitting at a table during a video conference in Geneva), interiors (St. Peter’s Basilica during an investiture of bishops) or incredible manmade technical achievements like the Three Gorges Dam in China. While being concerned with greatest possible authenticity, Linke is also interested in establishing a sense of loss of scale and proportions in the viewer.

It is always an archival notion that constitutes the conceptual background for Linke’s photographic work. While each image can stand for itself, the larger context points towards a conception of a world atlas - a book filled with snapshots of the most diverse places of this world. The book as a medium has been investigated by Linke with various works, and allusions to this can be seen in the white bars of the individual photographs scaling them to same 50 x 60 cm format with the exception of one oversize image.

Linke also investigates the threshold between fiction and reality in his films.
The two films shown in the exhibition have been produced in cooperation with Amedeo Martegani and both broach the issue of certain animal behaviour – the hypnotic focus of Devon Rex cats staring at the movement of an invisible toy, for instance, or albino donkeys meekly holding out in the midday sun. The simple observations pulled out of their narrative context and amplified through sound and editing are being transfused into menacing and emotional imagery.

For further information or images please contact the gallery

opening: 31st August 2007, 6 – 9pm
duration of the exhibition: 1st September – November 3rd 2007
opening hours: Tuesdays through Saturdays 11 – 6 pm and by appointment
 

Tags: Armin Linke