at close range
At Close Range, 2004, 50 x 60 cm each, Silver-gelatin prints
At Close Range is a series of photographs showing close ups of surfaces -- fabrics, cloths, and drapes, for instance -- and partial and obstructed views of everyday environments. The images seek to evoke the complete, absolute, and silent presence of things in the friction of the surface of the world and the photographic surface.
Focusing on close-up details, the photographs point to the kind of perception characteristic of the way we experience familiar environments, private spaces, and eroticism. The gaze no longer needs to comprehend, define, and control things. Instead, it rambles without purpose and feels out its way; it stays suspended and rests without thought. This way of seeing allows the work a sense of narrative, which creates a contrast to the images' factual adherence to surface. The fact that a drape or a curtain is captured in an image makes us believe that they are in some way important, in the fact that they must be attached to a meaningful memory. The close-up perspectives, therefore, begin to evoke a succession of spaces in one's imagination, the life of a person moving through them. A restless nomadic gaze that tries to grab hold of the world's factual reality becomes noticeable.
In the gray zone of staring -- the way of seeing that sketches and gauges -- cut and dry clarity can no longer be distinguished from dream and delusion. By oscillating between sobriety and intimacy, clarity and delusion, the images renounce absolute meaning, but demandingly open a space for interpretation. They combine the freedom of abstraction with the urgency of narration. Silently they lock the viewer into their rooms.
- Excerpt from the exhibition text by Martin Jaeggi