Beate Gütschow (Germany, 1970)
Beate Gütschow’s S series (for Stadt, city) consists of black and white photographs of urban landscapes and buildings, places that sometimes show traces of destruction or appear partially unfinished. The alarming, absolute immobility of the scenes, in which no trace of life is visible, arouses a sense of foreboding in the viewer. It is a suspended, rarefied and almost apocalyptic atmosphere that reigns in these images, one that we know from photographs taken in war zones.
Beate Gütschow’s S series (for Stadt, city) consists of black and white photographs of urban landscapes and buildings, places that sometimes show traces of destruction or appear partially unfinished. The alarming, absolute immobility of the scenes, in which no trace of life is visible, arouses a sense of foreboding in the viewer. It is a suspended, rarefied and almost apocalyptic atmosphere that reigns in these images, one that we know from photographs taken in war zones.
S#14 , 2005
S#10, 2005
Exhibition views
© Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina, Firenze; Valentina Muscedra
While individual architectural structures and sections of the places portrayed prove familiar to the viewer, the unusual combination of the whole makes it impossible to pin them down to any precise geographical context or time. The practicability of the individual buildings also appears uncertain. We are left with the impression of the architectural remains of a failed utopia.
Beate Gütschow’s works present what are literally “non-places”. What we see is not the result of a documentary investigation into the city but rather the artist’s personal vision of the urban environment. These images are the result of a long process of digital processing carried out on photographs of different cities, which are assembled to form a new unified view. The artist’s digital collages draw upon a heterogeneous archive of her own images and motifs taken from books and elsewhere to present urban scenes composed in accordance with the classic pictorial precepts for urban views. As she puts it, “All you have to do is follow two or three of these rules and the photographs will look like paintings, because this is how our perception has been moulded.” Gütschow’s photographs show urban landscapes in nonexistent places. Her work is like that of landscape painters who take the observation of reality as their starting point but then create the final work in the studio as a synthesis of reality and memory. The artist describes her intentions as follows: “I am interested in working on the difference between reality and representation. What we see in a photograph is very similar to what was in front of the camera’s lens, but there is always an enormous difference, even if it escapes our attention. I want to bring this difference to light.”
Beate Gütschow’s works present what are literally “non-places”. What we see is not the result of a documentary investigation into the city but rather the artist’s personal vision of the urban environment. These images are the result of a long process of digital processing carried out on photographs of different cities, which are assembled to form a new unified view. The artist’s digital collages draw upon a heterogeneous archive of her own images and motifs taken from books and elsewhere to present urban scenes composed in accordance with the classic pictorial precepts for urban views. As she puts it, “All you have to do is follow two or three of these rules and the photographs will look like paintings, because this is how our perception has been moulded.” Gütschow’s photographs show urban landscapes in nonexistent places. Her work is like that of landscape painters who take the observation of reality as their starting point but then create the final work in the studio as a synthesis of reality and memory. The artist describes her intentions as follows: “I am interested in working on the difference between reality and representation. What we see in a photograph is very similar to what was in front of the camera’s lens, but there is always an enormous difference, even if it escapes our attention. I want to bring this difference to light.”
S#10, 2005
Light Jet Print, Dibond
180 x 267 cm
Courtesy Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur
© 2008 VG Bildkunst, Beate Gütschow
S#14 , 2005
Light Jet Print, Dibond
180 x 267 cm
Courtesy Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich
© 2008 VG Bildkunst, Beate Gütschow
