A whole life document destroyed. Well, nearly. What first looked l ike a disaster proved to be something more ambiguous. Some of the prints survived, changed – the water making their colours run and bleed in places, somet imes obliterating all pictorial image but more often than not leaving some piece of figure behind – framing a face, a hand, in expressive scratchy hues; recomposing the whole photograph. The resulting images – and there are hundreds – are painfully beautiful.
As we see it, exhibiting these prints allows us to think about mortality and the fragility of the analogue photographic print as a store of memory. Perhaps, also, to speak about chance and the importance imperfection plays in life. With Liquid Archive viewers are invi ted to dive into the ebb and flow of memory, and the transience of its material and immaterial forms.
“A couple of weeks before all this happened I was talking to one of my close friends who asked me to imagine the worst thing that I could lose. I mentioned health, family and friends. Then he asked what I would think if I lost my photos. I said that this would indeed make me sad, but that they aren’ t an essential part of me.
The images were assigned to a physical medium and they brought me to where I am today as a photographer and as a human being.
But the past is only a construction upon which to build the future.
It ’s a means to an end, and perhaps something like this can bring me closer to the world. Everything disappears , what remains is random – even in photography.
People want to be engaged, and my interest in light , perspective and subject matter remains. Loss can be an exemption, a new challenge.”
Johannes Förster was born in Münster in 1985. He studied at the Annette v. Droste-Hülshoff Gymnasium before apprenticing in various photo studios in his home town. Between 2005 and 2010 he was assistant to Anatol Kotte, before embarking on his independent professional career. In 2010 he moved to Cape Town (South Africa) and, in 2011, to Berlin where he is current ly based. Beyond still photography, he is active as a filmmaker and is currently collaborating on a music video with the electronic music producer Acid Pauli, Nu and the Adana Twins.
Johannes Förster – Liquid Archive
Curators : Anja Henckel & Nadim Samman
From November 9th to December 7th, 2012
Import Project
Keiths trasse 10
10787 Berlin
Germany
[email protected]
