In case you would like to peek behind the scenes, I wrote about the conversion of a miniature warehouse into a miniature museum here.
Meaningful Location
Akademierundgang 2024 (2)
Akademierundgang stands for open house at Düsseldorf’s art academy. This year, the Rundgang (circuit) featured the graduates’ final projects. It was interesting at least, and very enjoyable at best. And while I don’t usually see the point of sharing photographs of art works, some objects cerntainly invited play. In this case, the high rise buildings appealed to the toy photographer. I also liked the idea that they could be boxed and stored away. The stairs in one of the other ateliers were as inviting, I hope the pictures allow a glance at the conditions under which art is produced.
Akademierundgang 2024 (1)
Akademierundgang stands for open house at Düsseldorf’s art academy. This year, the Rundgang (circuit) featured the graduates’ final projects. More than photographing the art itself, I enjoy making pictures of the premises, showing and commenting the circumstances under which art is made.
Kunstpunkte 2023
Kunstpunkte (literally “art spots”) stands for two weekends when more than 100 artists in Düsseldorf invite the public to visit their ateliers. These visits always fascinate me; they are a chance to get very close to art and artists, experiencing the places where the works are acutally made. This is similar to visiting the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (academy of fine arts) which I will cover in a separate post.
You may notice that I barely photograph the art itself, feeling much of it has already been reproduced (the last picture in this post shows part of an art work however). As for the artists themselves, I value their privacy, plus I am not really a portrait photographer. So here are some impressions from four different spots all of which you might not get to see outside of the Kunstpunkte.
Note: The next Kunstpunkte will take place next weekend and the weekend after.
Shorelines
Cap de Carteret
Le Havre
Les Falaises des Vaches Noires
Pointe de Barfleur – Phare de Gatteville
From the Cotentin peninsula to Le Havre, the Normandy coast has so many faces. And the light changes constantly. Here are a few pictures for the lens-artists challenge 314: shorelines.
Winter Games
Lens-artists challenge 313: cool colors.
Party of Five
Lens-Artists Challenge 312: Sense of scale. Photographing 1/87 scale (H0) worlds is in itself playing on our sense of scale, maybe even aiming at the viewer questioning her or his sense of scale for a moment. At the same time, most of the elements of a photo are applied in this small world, too: The objects in this picture, along with the camera position, should give a feeling of depth here. By employing these means, I hope to give the picture a real-life immediacy … a touch of streeet photography at best.
Museum Views XVI (Düsseldorf)
Museum Views XV (Wuppertal)
Museum Views XIV (Düsseldorf)
Souvenirs of Berlin
Architectures from Neue Nationalgalerie and Potsdamer Platz
Grids from Hamburger Bahnhof
More art at Hamburger Bahnhof, and a home made lemonade at the museum café
Lens Artists Challenge #308: pairs.
Museum Views XIII (Düsseldorf)
The current Lens Artists Challenge is perfect pairs (or diptychs), and reading this prompt immediately reinded me I always wanted to pair these two. They were taken in 2023 but I never really got around to continuing this series with things I see in museums. So this was a very welcome reminder.
“Faceless Self Portrait”
“A field day for deconstructivists: Is it really possible to speak of a ‘faceless self portrait’? Isn’t a person’s face what we believe to be the essence of their portrait? And doesn’t – on the other hand – the abstraction called for by a ‘faceless portrait’ defy the purpose? Couldn’t anyone hence claim that this self portrait was more accurately theirs? Must, therefore, any faceless self portrait incoporate some irony? And if so, with all différence lost and some irony thrown into the mix, what does it show? Me? Nah.”
It’s a Small World
She’s Leaving Home
An entry for this week’s lens artists challenge #304: Behind. The challenge is about backgrounds, and so is this picture – in a less literal sense, too.
With a Little Help From My Friends
A Bench
Initially, I only wanted to make a picture of a bench, a tree and the old man on a hill, in silhouette. Then I saw the potential for a short narrative – with a very similar, epic story by Christophe Chabouté, The Park Bench, at the back of my mind. So this is also a homage to one of my favorite graphic novels.
Continue reading “A Bench”In Line
Treat
Lens-Artists Challenge #298: To Be Young Again
When I’m Sixty-Four
Like “Lovely Rita” a couple of weeks ago, this one is based on a Beatles song. Though I am not a big fan of their music in general, I think the “Sgt. Peppers“ album is a work of genius, and I always wanted to do a series of pictures based on the entire selection of songs it features. One day… For now, here’s an entry for the Lens-Artists Challenge # 297: Music to My Eyes.
empire of lights 