Jeudi 13 Novembre 2014 16:48:34 par actuphoto dans Expositions

The world is everything that is the case. It is a rolling landscape at dusk and a swarm of birds over a temple's roof. The world is a teacup in Onomichi and a deserted island in Naoshima. It is, in actuality, everything that is the case. Or, at least, so indicates the famous first posit of Wittgenstein's "Tractatus logico-philosophicus". But the world could also be the reality depicted in Donata Wenders' photo series "Journey to Onomichi". In this photographic sketch book from her travels of 2005, the photographer shows us a singular view of the world, the world as it simply is. And she lets the world stand on its own, adding nothing. No explanations, no additional notes on the page. Onomichi, seen by Wenders through the lens of her Leica, ultimately remains shrouded in mystery. For the photographer the city in the Prefecture of Hiroshima is a kind of space. A land, free of all meaning. As a stage on which, every day, a God of small things can lay out his miracles.

The French philosopher Roland Barthes once wrote: "In Japan, the kingdom of the significant extends so much further than language." It appears that Donata Wenders had a similar experience. Nearly ten years ago, the student of cinematography together with her husband, the photographer and filmmaker Wim Wenders, traveled to the land of the rising sun. For an exhibition in the Omotesando Hills of Tokyo, they wanted to realize the project of two image makers portraying the same thing each in their own way.

While Wim Wenders approached the country via color, panoramic city- and landscapes, Donata Wenders focused on the periphery of vision: on the accessories of a small tea ceremony, on delicate, backlit silhouettes. It would be futile to paint these impressionistic black-and-white photographs with language and words. This is because Japan is pure. A collection of light and characters: fragile, volatile and full of poetry.

"Journey to Onomichi" is typical work for the 1965 Berlin-born artist. In her twenty years of photography, Donata Wenders has helped repoeticize the world. Often inspired by the visual language of Pictorialism and printing on rare photographic paper, she continually created images the never really showed everything. And precisely for this reason, they could show more than one could ever expect.

Starting on the 15th of November, two series of work by the Los Angeles-New York-Berlin-based photographer will be on display in the gallery of Johanna Breede. Shown next to the exceptional body of work "Journey to Onomichi"", there will be eleven small-format silver gelatin prints. These images, shown for the first time, originated in 2010 in Allgäu. Titled "Into the Snow"", this series consolidates the aesthetic approach of the artist into extremely fragile spaces. Behind snowflakes and grey winter light appears a dark-clad woman. Her silhouette is out of focus. Her whole existence is delicate, fragile, as glass. "I wanted to make visible what happens between people," says Donata Wenders about this work. Because what exists between people is a kind of field - a fluid, an intangible, energetic sphere. Whatever it may be, here it is made visible. Beyond the forms and fixed structures. That which is the case, when everything else is no longer. (Text: Ralf Hanselle, Translation: Sondra Kitchen)