In each of her works, Sylvia Ballhause studies both the aspects of photographic images and the conditions of their production. Most of the time, this research brings about the fortuitous or fervently desired discovery of a mysterious image or of an exceptional photographic apparatus.
In her current works, she probes, in different ways, the boundaries of photographic art. To do so, she uses known or unknown historical materials, as well as experimental processes or cameras. Hence, for example, with Triptyque Daguerre de Munich (Daguerre Triptych of Munich), she not only questions the photographs’ ephemeral nature, but also the relationship between reproduction and original, fact and artefact, medium and image. This leads her to also take an interest in the famous concept of the “aura”, introduced by Walter Benjamin. With a special camera, supposedly capable of capturing this invisible aura, she visualises the impossibility of a concrete representation of the concept, as well as photography’s desire to make the invisible visible.
All in all, Sylvia Ballhause is searching for the irrational. Her works oscillate between logical explanations and illogical apparitions. In so doing, she breaks photography’s positioning in the real world by making it slide towards a partly abstract and partly figurative reproduction of a world deprived of reality. Although, in the first instance, each of the images speaks a different language and highlights different aspects, when looking more closely, the many connections maintained between the images become obvious. This artist visually creates a complexity drawn from the theoretical debate about photography.
Sylvia Ballhause Born in 1977 in Halle (Saale), Germany. Lives and works in Leipzig, Germany. After an apprenticeship as graphic-designer, she graduated in communications design with a focus on photography in Darmstadt, Germany. From 2007 to 2011, she studied at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig (Germany) with Christopher Muller and Beate Gütschow (artistic photography, graduation with degree). In 2010, she participated on the exhibition Shoot! La photographie existentielle (Existential photography) at the Rencontres d’Arles with her works ‘‘Shootings’’. The show was also exhibited in Germany at Photomuseum Braunschweig and c/o Berlin. She won the Photo Folio Review 2011 at Arles for her recent body of work. Sylvia Ballhause has taken part in several group exhibitions and international photofestivals.
Images – Sylvia Ballhause
From July 2nd to August 19th, 2012
Eglise Saint Blaise
Rue du Grand Couvent
13200 Arles
Open everyday – 10am – 8pm
Exhibition produced with the support of the Fnac.
