KÜNSTER-RUNDGANG mit RAINER ZERBACK zu den Werkgruppen, PLACES OF INTEREST und CONTEMPLATIONES

In the organizer's words:

There are also artist tours for this exhibition, where you can experience and learn about the ideas and techniques behind the photographs.

The second tour focuses on the PLACES OF INTEREST and CONTEMPLATIONES groups of works.

"In 2013, I began to make the streams of visitors to tourist hotspots the subject of pictures, and since 2018 I have been working specifically on the PLACES OF INTEREST series. The term "Places of Interest" comes from travel guides and refers to places of special significance, be they historical or cultural sites or spectacular or picturesque landscapes. While the series was initially dedicated exclusively to natural tourist landscapes, since 2019 it has also included iconic places in major cities. In addition to the overarching and unifying aspect of the tourist attraction, the "place of interest", the two sub-series LANDSCAPES and SQUARES set different accents. While we expect a certain originality and emptiness in landscapes, this is of course not the case for inner-city squares. These literally invite us to stroll around, to see and be seen. In dealing with randomly found situations from reality, I condense the depicted space in a synthetic process step in order to create the surreal-seeming hyper-reality that I see in the situation. The staging of reality does not take place directly on location, but virtually in the image processing."

"What would happen if humans disappeared from the earth? What would our planet look like without us? In my CONTEMPLATIONES series, I create such a scenario - in quiet, heat-shimmering images without apocalyptic noise. The targeted image processing brings individual everyday objects into focus. We only encounter traces of human civilization: cars, electricity pylons, dwellings of various kinds. What at first glance gives the impression of peaceful innocence is irritating and unsettling at second glance. It seems as if the people had only recently been there. Such a - current, dystopian - reading of the series is in no way at odds with alternative, earlier interpretations of the series as an invitation to inner reflection and contemplation. The tranquillity of the images also harbors a sense of melancholy, loneliness and unease."