Photography

In postcolonial Africa, “White Elephant” was the ironic moniker given to buildings erected with international money and never put to use. They remain as blights--eroding reminders of enormous waste. Europe has its own collection of these contemporary ruins, such as Santiago Calatrava’s practically unused railway station near Lyon and the partially completed Aldo Rossi shopping mall in Berlin. On his search for the remains of these architectural wastelands, Swiss photographer Christian Helmle discovered numerous other examples throughout Europe--in both urban and rural locations. There is no connection between the barren structures and their communities, since they have never fulfilled their intended function; nature has claimed them instead. In light of their instant obsolescence, these sites have a surreal air--and a sense of melancholy--that Helmle heightens to great effect.

Still collects photographer Philippe Cheng's images of Long Island, New York, where he lives and works. Seeking to evoke a mood rather than capture the minute visual details of the landscape, Cheng shifts the focus plane within his camera to create scenes that are deliberately blurred. Poetic, personal interpretations of a landscape that has inspired many artists, Cheng's photographs are dominated by intense color and a gentle abstraction. The horizon, the sea, the sand and the beach grass of Long Island all make their appearances, but in abstracted, hazy, dreamlike forms, inviting the viewer to share Cheng's personal connection with the landscape. Still includes contributions by Terrie Sultan, Director of the Parrish Art Museum; curator Elisabeth Biondi; landscape designer Edwina von Gal; and textile designer Jack Larsen.

In Topography of Quiet, the internationally acclaimed German-born, New York–based photographer Bastienne Schmidt (born 1961) uses painting, drawing and photography to explore the patterns and typologies of nature. Her color and black-and-white photographs of ocean tides and patterns in sand and water are juxtaposed with other landscape scenes in which some small gesture of human activity or intervention is apparent--a hose floating on water, a pyramid in silhouette, tire marks, agricultural demarcations, white lines on a soccer field. These photographs, taken in locations around the world, are further augmented with delicate, complex paintings and drawings that underscore the subtlety of Schmidt’s eye. As the book’s title indicates, an expansive serenity permeates these works, which gently pursue and embrace the co-existence of the natural and the man-made.

German-born photographer Bastienne Schmidt (born 1961, now resident in the U.S.) challenges the popular idyll of household as private utopia with her Home Stills series. Posing in the role of lone housewife, and staging her works exclusively in Long Island, the artist recapitulates disconcertingly familiar scenarios excerpted from daytime TV. Following Highway 27 across Long Island from Patchogue to Easthampton, Schmidt recreates her interiors--from cheap motel rooms to upscale mansions--as imaginary rooms of her own, performing a dystopian twist on Virginia Woolf's eponymous idea of a feminist haven. Recalling the work of Cindy Sherman, Schmidt draws on such diverse visual influences as the films of Wim Wenders and the paintings and prints of Hokusai, Sigmar Polke, Jan Vermeer and Edward Hopper, to portray the alienated social contracts of a world of suburban fragmentation and loneliness.

Bilingual edition (English/German) / Zweisprachige Ausgabe (deutsch/englisch)

Due to its more than 4,000 white Bauhaus buildings, Tel Aviv is often called “the White City”. The city center, created in the nineteen-thirties and -forties under the influence of international modernism, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. Many architects, most of them emigrating from Europe, found opportunities here to realize their ideological principles and architectural ideas. Tel Aviv’s modernism is characterized by a specific combination of functionality and elegance. While the buildings are adapted to the climatic conditions, many of them display highly specific stylistic features.
Stefan Boness succeeds in capturing the particularities and unique atmosphere of the city in his photographs. By juxtaposing classical modernism with the contemporary architecture of the city, he demystifies it while simultaneously embedding it in a historical context.

This publication documents the latest project by New York–based photographer Bastienne Schmidt (born 1961). Part one features bird's-eye photographs of constructed installations of colorful fabric and thread in the snow, while the second part reflects on the tradition of the square grid through mixed-media works on paper.

Photographers collects Birgit Kleber's close-up black-and-white portraits of the world's finest living photographers, including Anton Corbijn, Gisele Freund, Nan Goldin, F.C. Gunlach, Barbara Klemm, Saul Leiter, Boris Mikhailov, Shirin Neshat, Martin Parr, Pierre et Gilles, Robert Polidori, Thomas Ruff, Sebastiao Salgado, Cindy Sherman, Juergen Teller and Jeff Wall.

Gustaf Dalman hielt nicht viel von Knipsern. Wenn der deutsche Palastinakundler ab 1899 zwischen Aleppo und Alexandria unterwegs war, lies er sich Zeit. Er beobachtete, griff zum Notizbuch und zur Plattenkamera: sachlich, stilvoll, immer auf Augenhohe mit seinem Gegenuber, sei es nun ein Mensch oder ein Klappspaten. Bis zu seinem Tod im Jahr 1941 sammelte Dalman in Greifswald rund 20.000 eigene und fremde Fotografien einer Kulturlandschaft auf dem Sprung zur Moderne. Dieser europaweit einmalige Bestand wird von der Theologin und Kunsthistorikerin Karin Berkemann erstmals umfassend bildwissenschaftlich ausgewertet – und verglichen mit den Aufnahmen deutscher Reisender ab 1948, nach der Grundung des Staates Israel. Manche suchten hier mit der Kamera das Altertumliche, andere die Zeichen einer neuen Zeit. Quer durch die Jahrzehnte fugen sich die Fotografien heute zur vielschichtigen Topografie einer Region, die drei Weltreligionen und ungezahlten Kulturglaubigen als heilig gilt.