Architecture + Photography Hélène Binet / Christian Richters / Friederike von Rauch

Exhibition
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The exhibition presents three different positions in contemporary architectural photography.

Artist Hélène Binet, who is living in London, has been commissioned by famous architects such as Caruso St. John, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind and Peter Zumthor. Besides her work in applied art, she intensively dedicates herself to artistic examinations of architectural icons. As shown in the exhibition from studio Peter Zumthor, the interaction of light and shadow as well as the theme of internal and external space play an essential role.

For Berlin artist Friederike von Rauch, architecture is the source of inspiration from which she develops independent work. As an artist, she concentrates on her own perception and interpretation. She is interested in intricate and concealed details and seemingly unspectacular motifs. A selection of images of post-war churches in Berlin demonstrates her reduced visual language.

Architectural photographer Christian Richters is well known for his pragmatic photo series for architects like David Chipperfield, Diener & Diener, UN Studio and others. The focus of his work rests on photos of buildings and rooms. His goal is to give the viewer a realistic and complete image of the photographed objects. The exhibited series of photographs of a building by Claus + Kaan show this approach in an impressive and yet reserved way.

Architectural photography deals with the ambiguity between documentation and artistic creation — reality and illusion. On the one hand, a photographic image portrays the objective character of a building; on the other hand the photographer chooses a certain situation and thereby accentuates the building’s character. In both applied and artistic photography, staging architectural objects usually results in shots of buildings void of any human presence or trace of unpleasant surroundings. It is up to the photographer to decide whether his image will lean toward a more documentary or illusionary context. In applied photography, the photographer needs to extract and edit a synthesis in order to convey a complex image to the visitor.

The exhibition “Architektur + Fotografie” (“Architecture + Photography”) presents the subjective image search. Even though Binet, Richters and von Rauch each have their own view, the photographs still share a common element: In each picture a certain atmosphere is captured that leads to a greater complexity. Therefore the photographs not only function as a document, but also enable the imagination to go beyond rational associations.