Lundi 20 Avril 2015 13:16:58 par actuphoto dans Expositions

Raum für Fotografie at the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen will open “Field Trip”, Slovak photographer Martin Kollar’s first solo exhibition in Germany. The roughly fifty works are the most extensive presentation to date of his eponymous project for which he won the prestigious Leica Oskar Barnack Award in 2014.

Martin Kollar lived and worked in Israel for extended periods on and off again between November 2009 and January 2011. The pictures he took then form a powerful, often humorous, yet complex photographic documentary of what may well be the most contested region in modern history. The title “Field Trip” is intimately linked with his growing personal relationship with the country: It is a report on an investigatory excursion. Kollar observes, but neither undertakes to pass judgment nor to offer solutions.

The photographer reveals surprising new views of the country of Israel in enigmatic images. Among others, he visited places that are usually not easily accessible even to Israeli civilians: military proving grounds, research stations and research institutes. In his pictures, Kollar presents a society actively preparing itself for potential future scenarios. Without this background knowledge, his subjects look like sets from some science fiction movie, however. Shot in cool light, Kollar’s photographs always appear to move between reality and fiction. In the process, his pictures emanate a faint and subtle disquietude that is hard to describe.

Martin Kollar was born in Zilina, Czechoslovakia (now in the Slovak Republic) in 1971. Since graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, he has worked as a freelance photographer and cinematographer. He has won numerous important photography awards and is nominated for this year’s Prix Elysée.