Harry Fisch initiated his activity in the 70’s with a time were the enlarger and the laboratory were essential to develop the skills adequately. The arrival of the digital photography boasted his activity that developed intensely in two opposite directions: on the one hand the photography of creation and on the other the documenting of trips. Series like “Convicts”, “Piggy Back” “Lively appearance of Death ” corresponds to the first were the author conceives diverse subject matters without limiting himself to the reality, creating his own worlds and fictions, with entire creative freedom. To the second, the documentary aspect, belongs the series “Benares, rive gauche”. Unlike the previous one, here the reality sets the limits and the context, but always filtered through the vision and image conception of the author.
The fascination that this one feels for the “other side”, so hidden at first glance, appears in his work despite the radical difference of thematic and creative approach. The commonplace is the exploration of the underlying, which remains under the visible level, the emotional after the appearance of reality. The sheer beauty is not sufficient. Photography is only meaningful if it generates emotions in the spectator, if it provokes or upsets. He presented his work to the public for the first time in 2010 and was selected for his work “Convicts” in the prestigious festival Photoespaña. The selection was made among more than 1,800 international proposals. That same year he participates in the collective international exhibition “The body, the flesh and soul” which artists works were exhibited in Venice Atelier Gallery, Museum of Modern Art in Munich and the Centre for Contemporary Art in Cologne.
The series Benares, rive gauche refers to the holy city of Benarés, the most ancient inhabited city of the world. In the bank of the Ganges near to the city, the religious life is hectic. Holy men, pilgrims, tourists, boats, beggars, masseurs, barbers, dogs, sacred cows come to the river furrowed by the “gahts”, steps by which the pilgrims reach the river to take baths and ablutions while cremations, morning and night prayers are taking place.
At the other side, the “Rive gauche”, there is nearly nothing. Two boatmen. An enormous extension of sand, mixing of beach and desert, plucking from the Ganges up to the infinite. In the horizon, lost in the haze, the mirage of a forest. The heat wraps everything. A lost family, bathing. A pair of horses. A boat stranded on the sand.
Little to interest tourists and pilgrims.
Weekend portfolio selected by David Fahey.
