Ulrich Görlich
Monday, 3 August 2009
Work from 15 Landschaften.
Görlich’s work is a kind of anti-portraiture/landscape that maintains powerful relevance 10 years after its initial creation. 15 Landschaften (15 Landscapes) is an exercise in meta-photographic seeing/thinking. This work calls to mind other photographers who share conceptual relationships with Görlich, but whose aesthetic is far more rooted in their specific time (Nikki S. Lee comes to mind). Only one of the images visually references the existence of a subject, but there is a distinct aesthetic to these images that brings to mind vacation snapshots (albeit taken by a skilled photographer), yet it is not entirely apparent that someone has been removed from the photographs. The rectangles appear to be a specific muted color chosen from the palate of the image, but always in a way that serves to minimize the impact of their presence. The images, when viewed together, read like the remnants of a road-trip through the desert whose tone fluctuates between peaceful and lonely.