NEW YORK, NY.- Hasted Kraeutler presents an exhibition of new photographs by Andreas Gefeller. This is Andreas’ third solo exhibition with Hasted Kraeutler, following Andreas Gefeller: Recent Work (2009) and Andreas Gefeller: Supervisions (2007).
The Japan Series is a body of work that Gefeller created in March and early April 2010 in the “Tottori Prefecture of Japan for the European Eyes on Japan/Japan Today” photography project. During his time in Japan, Gefeller photographed the elaborate, aboveground power cables that are ubiquitous in the prefecture. When photographing the cables, his perspective was from below, against a white or black sky, as though he was isolating them in a studio. For each work he digitally assembled at least two viewpoints so that the pole disappears and the cables and transformers float in the composition and become abstract. Gefeller writes, “These wildly proliferating formations resemble vegetation in their chaotic growth, yet are always embedded in a superordinate structure. These structures recall calligraphic marks and Japanese letters, a coincidence I gladly welcomed.” The technique and materials, inkjet prints on fine art paper, also encourage the association to calligraphy.
The Japan Series also includes photographs of plant life, whose formation is an overt artifact of the ergonomics of human intervention, such as grapevines, pear trees, branches on a wall, and a pergola. Cherry blossoms, for which Japan is famed, were scattered on an asphalt-paved street, and on a hardwood theater stage, reveals (with seemingly random and arguably chaotic scuffs and scratches) their conspicuous use—evidentiary support of life. In this body of work, Gefeller not only conducts an inquiry of reality, in digital photography, as he did in his Supervisions (2007) works, but also investigates the relationship between natural growth (Organics) versus construction (Artifacts and Ergonomics), and the formal qualities of natural and manmade structures.
In contrast to Andreas’ earlier works, one might notice his use of color; in that, the colors are more muted (than in Supervisions, for example); each incident of color, whether it is an orange sticker on a transformer, or the shade of pink of a cherry blossom, were passionately deliberated, and purposefully chosen.
Andreas Gefeller was born in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1970. He studied photography at the University of Essen, where he graduated with honors (in 2000). In addition, Andreas was appointed to the German Academy of Photography in 2001. He currently resides and works in Düsseldorf.
