Untitled - Cascade Art Space

German Artist Tilmann Krieg takes photos, but those photographs differ substantially from
what we usually think of as a photograph. He generally takes pictures of people from behind,
rather than from the front, and even those images are blurred, as thought out of focus,
with images that appear to overlap. The artist has adjusted the exposure time: when it is
longer, the moving images appear to overlap, and when it is longer still, all of the moving
figures end up and disappear without a trace. With this, the objects that leave only minimal
traces or vanish completely belong to a different level from the sense of actuality and indexicality
that are virtues of the traditional photograph. The artist is aiming at something
different from trust in unshakeable fact, from the evidence and proof.
As the subjects appear to melt into the greater flow, the pictures come to resemble paintings,
more than photographs and elicit both a lyrical feeling and a distinctive atmosphere.
These impressions also combine with the dynamic image of the Metro that the artist draws
upon as subject matter. The subway is a representive icon that let us spy into the everyday
life and identity of the modern individual. Modern people are always on the move somewhere,
and they are reborn in the photographs as anonymous entities who have lost their
identity within the busy everyday existence.
The images of people from behind hint as this anonymous subject, and the scene of the subway,
light and dark interwoven appropiately, calls to mind an urban womb sheltering these
anonymous beings. In this way, the photographs recall the fleeting nature of being: moving
beings, flowing beings, beings that linger as traces and finally disappear completely.
Kho Chunghwan, Art Critic, Seoul, Korea
aus dem Katalog: „You + I = We“, Ausstellung Museum PakYoung, Seoul 2009
SENDING MESSAGES, Seoul 2009
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