deconarch

Nur selten achtet man auf die ganz alltägliche Architektur, die einen tagein tagaus umgibt. Architektur wird, wenn man ihr denn mehr Aufmerksamkeit schenkt (alle, die beruflich damit zu tun haben, seien hier einmal ausgenommen), zumeist nur in ihrer monumentalen Form warhrgenommen – Prachtbauten aus vergangenen Zeiten etwa, historische Schlösser, Burgen und Kirchen stehen weit oben auf der touristischen Beliebtheitsskala. Aber auch zeitgenössischere Neubauten fallen auf und sorgen hin und wieder für Gesprächsstoff, seien es die trendy Luxusmalls, die in den letzten Jahren aus dem Boden sprießen, oder giganteske Hochhäuser. Hier jedoch ist es eher das auffällige Äußere, über das man spricht, weniger die Architektur als solche.

Alltägliche Zweckbauten hingegen erregen nur selten Aufmerksamkeit. Allenfalls wenn sie stören oder zum Problem werden, diskutiert man über sie – besonders hitzig so geschehen etwa beim Streit um den Umbau des Stuttgarter Hauptbahnhofs, zuvor trotz Denkmalstatus weniger ein Beispiel beliebter Bauwerke.

Alltagsarchitektur ist meist zweckmäßig, unauffällig, unspektakulär, neutral, nicht unbedingt das, was gemeinhin als “schön” empfunden wird. Alltagsarchitektur sind funktionelle Nutzbauten, sind Wohnbauten und Büros, sind Fabriken und Läden, sind Bahnhöfe, Supermärkte, Hochhäuser, Reihenhäuser, … Die Liste lässt sich lange fortsetzen.

Die folgenden Künstler und Künstlerinnen machen gerade diese Architektur zu ihrem Thema und widmen ihnen ihre Aufmerksamkeit. So werden etwa in Fotoserien oft Bauten zum Thema gemacht, die sonst kaum oder allenfalls beiläufig wahrgenommen werden. In diesen Arbeiten wird gerade die Alltäglichkeit, die Unauffälligkeit und Serialität in den Fokus gestellt, und so manches Mal werden überraschende An- und Einsichten enthüllt.  Die hier präsentierten künstlerischen Positionen verfolgen Herangehensweisen und verschiedene Perspektiven, mit denen sie sich dem Thema der Alltagsarchitektur annähern.

Short summary: “Everyday architecture” Hardly do we notice the everyday architecture around us (unless we are dealing with architecture for professional reasons). And if we do so, it is mostly the monumental forms – historical buildings, e.g., castles, palaces, churches are popular touristic sights; or maybe contemporary newly built houses, such as luxurious malls or gigantic highrises. But it is mostly the extravagant exterior that is capturing attention, rather than architecture itself.

These artists focus on everyday architecture, like functional housing, offices, shops, factories, supermarkets, … With different media and their very own point of view, they think about the “everydayness”, the seriality and normality of these buildings.

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Tobias Weber, Parking Nord (In der Stadt), Acryl auf Baumwolle, 240 x 120cm, 2009 © Tobias Weber

Kunst und Architektur inspirieren sich gegenseitig im Schaffen von Tobias Weber. Der Schweizer Künstler ist studierter Architekt und in beiden Bereichen gleichermaßen tätig. Seine Themen findet er in alltäglichen Szenerien der dichtbesiedelten urbanisierten Welt; er zeigt Häuserfassaden, Straßen, Tiefgaragen, kurz: vom Menschen eingenommene funktionale Räume und die Spuren, die dies hinterlässt. Webers Bilder präsentieren Ausschnitte von Zweckarchitekturen, die überall begegnen, die man aus eben diesem Grund jedoch kaum mehr wahrnimmt, geschweige denn, dass man sie in irgendeiner Weise als »künstlerisch« wertvoll empfindet.

Tobias Weber, Park Ost (Schönes neues Zürich), Acryl auf Baumwolle, 200 x 110, 2006 © Tobias Weber

Auffällig ist die ungewöhnliche Formensprache der Gemälde: Die Bilder kommen mit wenig Farben aus, meist setzt Weber nur einen Farbton in verschiedenen Abstufungen ein oder kontrastiert wenige Farben. Die Motive werden dominiert von schwarzglänzenden, leicht erhabenen und unregelmäßigen Konturlinien, die wie Lakritze auf der Leinwand zu liegen scheinen. Sie formen reine Farbflächen ohne Schattierungen, die den Bildern eine ungewöhnliche, comichafte Wirkung verleihen.

Mehr über Tobias Weber in meinem Text in der architekturzeitung.de.

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Fenster, Inden, Aug. 2002 (aus: Orte ohne Wiederkehr) © Johannes Twielemeier

Für seine Serie Orte ohne Wiederkehr etwa hat Johannes Twielemeier die Spuren einer enormen Umsiedlungsaktion mitten in Deutschland festgehalten: Seit 1984 wird das Braunkohletagebaugebiet Garzweiler zwischen Aachen und Düsseldorf erweitert. Bis zum Jahr 2040 wird auf einer Gesamtfläche von ca. 120 Quadratkilometern eines der größten Braunkohletagebaugebiete Europas entstehen – für das über 7500 Menschen in 13 Ortschaften umgesiedelt werden. Eine ganze Region wird in eine Geisterlandschaft aus leerstehenden Häusern und verwaisten Straßen verwandelt. Twielemeiers Fotografien, die von 2002 bis 2009 entstanden, zeigen Szenen dieser vom Verschwinden bedrohten Region.

Garten, Spenrath, Mai 2006 (aus: Orte ohne Wiederkehr) © Johannes Twielemeier

Es ist eine ungewöhnliche Verbindung künstlerischer Ausdrucksmittel, die Twielemeiers Arbeit prägt: Der gelernte Steinmetz arbeitet nicht nur mit Stein, sondern auch als Fotograf. Den Fotografen Twielemeier beschäftigen die Spuren, die von Menschen in Zeit und Raum hinterlassen werden, die Bruchstellen im urbanen Raum, die sich vor allem und immer wieder in architektonischen Zeugnissen aufspüren lassen.

Mehr Informationen über seine Arbeit gibt Johannes Twielemeier in einem Interview mit deconarch.com.

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Porto Interior, 80 x 80 cm, 2007 © Inês d'Orey

Inês d’Orey‘s ongoing project “Porto Interior” shows empty interiors of public and semi-public spaces the photographer’s home city of Porto, Portugal.

Fenianos 2 (from: Porto Interior), 80 x 80 cm, 2007 © Inês d'Orey

“Porto Interior functions as a collection of spaces that I search and find throughout the city. These interiors are photographed absent of any human presence. Familiar places like theatres, swimming pools or staircases, used by people on a daily basis, become stages for a story that is never clear, but that doesn’t need to be clear.  Through digital manipulation, I alter  the photographs subtly until I create  the atmosphere I find appropriate.” Inês d’Orey

More in an interview with Inês d’Orey.

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An exhibition at Porto presents new works of Portugese photographer Inês d’Orey‘s striking, ongoing series “Porto Interior”. To find out more about Inês’ work and her intentions, please read this interview she gave deconarch.com some time ago.

© Inês d'Orey

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Porto Interior

From 12^th March until 15^th May 2011.

Edifício da Ex-Cadeia e Tribunal da Relação do Porto

Porto, Portugal

www.cpf.pt

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PR info: Inês d’Orey returns with new incursions through Porto, scattered in time and space. After de New Talent Fnac Photography 2007, the (re)discovery of the city has been continued. Unlike immediate appearances, the city seems to be growing, intimately.

When punctuated by the absence of any human being, the public and semi-public interiors spaces of the city are hit by an alteration in the meaning and in the identity imprinted on Porto. What the city represents becomes thereby more extreme. These spaces, apparently stagnant, transform themselves into a series of generic places, existing and subsisting in a lost time.

Therefore, these images are offered as stages, always with a different story to tell. The intention is not to document as an objective process, but rather to explore the possibility and the impossibility of a porto interior, where one arrives and remains.

As I already announced, here is the interview with young Portuguese photographer Inês d’Orey. I am happy that Inês found the time to answer some questions about her work – thanks Inês!!

Her fascinating photo series Porto Interior can still be seen at Galleri Image, Aarhus (Denmark) until May, 10, 2009. So if you happen to hang around in Denmark – don’t miss the chance!

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Fenianos 2 (from: Porto Interior), 80 x 80 cm, 2007 © Inês d'Orey

Inês, what can we see at Aarhus?

The exhibition Porto Interior in Galleri Image, presents a selection of 14 large format photographs, part of my ongoing project of  representing empty interiors of public and semi-public spaces in Porto, Portugal. The photographs are exhibited in conjunction with a video projection that incorporates sound recordings of people using the spaces in the photographs.

What is your intention with Porto Interior?

Porto Interior functions as a collection of spaces that I search and find throughout the city. These interiors are photographed absent of any human presence. Familiar places like theatres, swimming pools or staircases, used by people on a daily basis, become stages for a story that is never clear, but that doesn’t need to be clear.  Through digital manipulation, I alter  the photographs subtly until I create  the atmosphere I find appropriate.

Why photography? Why did you become a photographer?

Photography, because it provides the possibility of communicating from a physical and objective reality at the same time, with a subjective subtext underneath. And those two elements put together create a really interesting provocation.

What does art mean to you, which possibilities does it offer?

What is art?

Piscina de Campanhã (from: Porto Interior), 80 x 80 cm, 2007 © Inês d'Orey

How do you choose your motifs?

There isn’t a rule. I’m inspired everyday by different sources that, at a certain point, come together and result in an idea.

Who / What are your role models? Who / What influenced your work?

I never had any role models, specially in photography. My main influences come from cinema , painting and illustration.

In many projects, you focus on architecture, resp. rooms/interiors as well as “space” in general. Why? What does architecture / space mean to you?

Until I finished my degree in photography, I had never been particularly interested in architecture. But then, I started to work with an architecture photographer and was, in a way, „forced” to photograph space! That much delivery and exposure to architecture and being always surrounded by architects made me, slowly, start to acquire a special interest in it. And it reached the point of being, at the moment, my main interest.

What is it that you are interested in when portraying architecture/buildings and people?

The beauty of the form and light, the curiosity of the functionality, the misterious possibility of an unclear narrative.

The everyday usage of spaces tends to make them invisible, indiferent. The more you use the space, the more you ignore it. What photography does is, it selects, focuses your attention and tells you where to look.

Porto Interior, 80 x 80 cm, 2007 © Inês d'Orey

What are your ambitions with your photographs (esp. your “urban” works, but also in a broader point of view)?

I want to trigger the viewer’s imagination: what strange story is happening here? I like to think that the viewer will feel, more than rationalize the photograph.

What – in your opinion – is characteristical of your work and your working method?

I always plan and think through before I photograph. I never go out with my camera waiting for something to happen.

I think I could say that my work conceptually stages reality.  I’m more interested in “creating a moment”, more than “catching the moment”.

Still until 10 May 2009  you can admire Inês d’Orey’s photo series Porto Interior at Galleri Image, Aarhus (Denmark). I had the chance to see some of her work during the Fotofestival Mannheim_Ludwigshafen_Heidelberg 2007 and have thus already mentioned Porto Interior on this blog.

Inês d'Orey, Porto Interior, 80 x 80 cm, 2007 © Inês d'Orey

Inês d’Orey (*1977 in Porto), educated at the London College of Printing, won the FNAC Award for Talents in Photography in 2007. She photographs public and semi-public places in Porto, her home city, where she continues to reside. “The project had its starting point in d’Orey’s urge to examine places in the city that appear both strange and familiar; not so much ‘documenting’ Porto, therefore, as exploring the possible and impossible interiors of the city. In these photographs a sense of architectural detail, pattern and structure is combined with an eye for the very special atmosphere of place.” (quote PR release)

D’Orey portrays the interiors of public rooms – yet while normally being crowded with people, here they are  without human presence. The sceneries, ranging from sports-halls, parking lots, hotels, stairways, foyers and the most intimate private spaces, varying in their degree of ‘recognisability’, appear strange, fascinating and unreal. By means of photographic manipulations, d’Orey alters the urban motifs to create a certain atmosphere: Her aim is to capture the spirit of place and to intensify it.

“The onlooker imagines the diversity of human activity that might normally take place in these buildings and the possible stories that emanate from them. Distanced as they are from their current human context, the passage and the wear of time become distinct entities. (…). The emerging images, poised between the real and the mysterious, make the viewer conscious in a renewed way of the physical surroundings of his/her daily life.”(quote PR release)

In Aarhus, d’Orey’s photographs are shown with a video projection that incorporates sound recordings of people using the spaces in the photographs. The absence of humans in the images, and their corresponding presence in the sound, is part of the meaning of the exhibition.

I am very glad  that Inês d’Orey found the time to answer some questions which I will share with you in an interview soon.