Black, dark brown, earthy and ocher-colored parallel lines traverse a square image carrier horizontally, as well as, warm red and orange, sun-yellow but also grass green, light- and dark green. In the lower image section a narrow, light blue stripe breaks through the dark brown. (Excerpt of the essay »The Landscapes I-VII (2014) by Elias Wessel – ‘In the end, though, nothing is lost«, by curator Jenny Graser, Städel Museum Frankfurt am Main, Germany)

Exhibition poster of Spuren der Wirklichkeit at the Goethe Institut Frankfurt am Main, 2016 (all images © Elias Wessel and VG Bild-Kunst Bonn with courtesy of the Goethe Institut and CPE New York, 2016)

From August 5 to October 5, 2016 (extended through October 26) the Goethe Institute Frankfurt am Main presents Elias Wessel‘s Landscapes series in the solo-exhibition Spuren der Wirklichkeit (Traces of Reality). The pictorial source of the Landscapes are photographs of landscapes taken during an artist residency in Kursk, Russia. There, the city administration demands rapid urbanization; old houses are demolished and citizens are forcibly displaced. The concern lies in the image making process. The nature of photography, to depict a virtual image of reality, is being destroyed. Houses and people vanish. By analogy this process and resulting images reflect the city’s intention and consequences of modernization.

Image of Elias Wessel, Landscapes VI, 2014, Color Photograph, 60 x 60 cm (Kursk Edition)

Related