29 April – 8 October 2010 / Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
As part of the PhotoBiennale 2010
Production: TMP
There is a boundary which distinguishes the category of man-made places from those of the common elements. These are not written in stone, but can change; in the same manner, stone under certain conditions can be considered a statue and a land field a landscape. In his classic essay “The Philosophy of Landscape”, George Simmel argues that only when our consciousness acquires a new totality, a unitary vision superseding all individual elements, that is to say a unitary vision that is not attached to particular meanings and is not fashioned by them in a mechanical way, only then can we discern a landscape. In the photographs of Nikos Markou, not only do we see a landscape and not merely the earth, but we actually enter his landscapes. He proposes a new totality, as Simmel argued, where a balance between the universal and the particular is established by his masterful use of detail. What at first appears to be a bare hill, in reality contains hundreds of tiny figures, forcing us to reinterpret the image anew. Amid a hard and austere image of rocks, an entwined tree grows, subverting the image’s prima facie meaning. There is always an unexpected twist. His world can be interpreted as a body of infinite folds and surfaces that weave through compressed time and space – always in the process of becoming, while appearing static. Nikos Markou “Topos -Nuances of space” works on three levels. In Greek “topos” means land, space or even countryside; so on a first simple level we are dealing with images which relate to places. Yet through his choice of scenery these images transfigure into a landscape –Nikos Markou landscape. And if you notice closer you see that this landscape is in constant change.
It is interesting to note that there may be some underlying connections between the distinct folds and the fact that Markou studied to be a mathematician; what may seem haphazard is actually intentional and repetitive, transmuted into folds and nuances. “Topos – Nuances of Space” plays with the natural and the artificial. There is actually an artificial stratum underlying what at first seems natural; yet the two elements are never distinct: they blend to create these paradoxical color photos of manmade natural landscapes, existing between categories; or creating one of their own, one more fold.
Inge Rambow. Niemandsland
With the support of DZ Bank & studio Rambow
Endless worlds. strange landscapes, monumental forms, extraordinary colours. Yet this is only an ostensible visual cornucopia. Inge Rambow’s pictures represent what transpires when people unleash their destructive powers on nature; Rambow’s pictures at the same time hint at complex relations thus forcing us to take a second look. The term Niemandsland symbolises a rather inhospitable area. This theme runs throughout Inge Rambow’s pictures like a red thread. Her multidimensional work is defined by sets of large dimension works. When the Berlin Wall came down, reconnaissance walks in East Germany «soon led to the longest journey I had ever undertaken», notes Inge Rambow: «I am interested in a way of representing landscapes which noticeably transcend readily legible reality either through the dimension of their past or in the form of a monument of the future». Inge Rambow’s shots convey vignettes from historical events. Traces from the gigantically-sized mine of surface extraction of lignite in the former East Germany led to the project titled «Desolations» which was carried out from 1991 to 1994. Using plate cameras, Inge Rambow captured the wilderness of huge abandoned industrial expanses in Skopau and the outskirts of Leipzig. Bare successive cliffs run through by canyons, flat expanses or water in a play of light and shadow pretend that they are untouched areas limited only by the faraway line of the horizon.
Inge Rambow subverts contemporary landscape photography in an even more radical fashion with the work «Lunar Baedeker Buna» which was completed during the years 1994-95; this work constitutes the core of the «Desolations» series. From 1936 when Nazis founded the Buna factory of chemicals in the outskirts of the Leuna city between Halle and Merzeburg, the waste of artificial materials production was stored in a huge refuse dump until 1990. Temples of toxic waste, rainbow-like karstifications, and mires of ecologic disasters supplied Inge Ranbow with subjects of immense appeal. It is readily apparent that Rambow’s photographs printed on shiny Cibachrome paper have not undergone any subsequent processing; in this manner, her pictures develop an intensely surrealist aesthetic.
From 2001 to 2006, Inge Rambow traversed many thousands of kilometres through Russia in the context of various extended journeys. Between Caucasus and the Urallian mountains, Rambow discovered the decay of architecture, the illusion of technology and symbols of power.