Johan Rosenmunthe
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
Work from Silent Counts.
“The point of departure for Johan Rosenmunthe is a childlike fascination with stones – ordinary objects, mysterious and silent but carrying a hidden story. The artist applies to them his nostalgic, scientific and philosophical point of view and presents them as the traces of this intriguing visual tale entitled Silent Counts…
At first sight most of his earlier works seem to be a product of ‘’on location’’ practice. The photographs showed either modern city or completely savage areas (Imagine Remembering, The Isle of Human or Off). Once we give them a scrutinized regard we can see that it is none of that. The essential topic of his works is situated before and after the capture, in the conception and meticulous retouch.
Silent Counts confirms the turning point which took place in 2011 with the cycle Transmutations. Henceforth Rosenmunthe puts the emphasis on the process taking place in the studio; he is a photographer who fabricates, gathers and puts together whats being removed form the image in the flow of reality. To say it in a bit provacative way quoting Stephen Shore – Johan Rosenmuthe is a photographer who has eyes but hands as well.
He shows the attitude of a mistrustfull witness towards the capacity of photography to reproduce the reality reliably. Rosenmuthe often plays with this kind of naive and instinctive interference but with Silent Counts his ambition is different. He proposes a precise examination of the stones and the objects put in relation with them from purely photographic angle. Somehow the aim is, basing on a personal subject, to create a group of images whose form and narration will be strictly photographic.
Doing so, Johan Rosenmuthe takes advantage of the features of the medium, mostly the confict between the 3 dimension objects presented in 2 dimensions, the optical superiority of lenses and photo-sensible materials over the human eye, the capacity to create limited and independent space and ability of the image to absorb new meaning depending on the context. This cycle of a distant and stellar beauty is clearly an accomplishment linking conceptual photography and the most sophisticated formalism.” — Paul Frèches