Throughout its history, photography has always favoured the tree as a subject of study, and this from the beginning, even before the famous images by Le Gray and other photographers in the the Fontainebleau forest. If the tree is alone, photography made it a portrait, if they are grouped together in a forest and laid out as avenues among the trees, photography put the pathways in perspective or even slipped through gaps in the clearings to show puddles on the ground, lit up by the sun or light filtered by the foliage.
But in 1920, with Rodchenko and the low-angle shot that he introduced, everything changed: the gaze tipped up, it is that of the walker who lays down on his back in the forest and looks upward, from the ground towards the very tops pf the trees and the sky. Like Rodchenko, to whom he pays tribute, Holger Trülzsch stresses those forms of modernity which nature offers, equivalent or identical to those developed by industrial civilization, concrete and metal in cities and suburban areas.
This tilting of the gaze and the earthly force it releases, as in Holger Trülzch’s photographs that are currently being shown at the Galerie Michèle Chomette in Paris, doesn’t give a feeling of vertigo, but on the contrary a good example of the power of nature in presenting models of perfect order and demonstrates that it is not mankind who has created order in the face of a supposedly chaotic nature. Holger Trülzch combines this modernity with the spirit of romanticism. The union of these two qualities gives this series a special importance. The beauty of prints from the 1982-83 period, produced by the artist himself, adds deep and shimmering vibrations.
Holger Trülzsch, Hommage à Rodtchenko
From 9th September to 28th October 2017
Galerie Michèle Chomette
24 rue Beaubourg
75003 Paris
France
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