Twenty-five years have passed since Christian Vogt’s last exhibition in New York. Rick Wester Fine Art presents two new series: The Flaxen Diary (2003 – 2011) and Tree’s Own (2011).
Most of Christian Vogt’s models face away from the camera, as if avoiding the photographer’s gaze. It’s amazing to watch how he plays with the absence. This is one of the many idiosyncrasies of the Swiss photographer, whose personal images and outlook differ from those of his contemporaries. In The Flaxen Diary, the photographer shows us one of his diaries, featuring men, objects and animals, all carefully composed in peculiar scenery. No links can be perceived among these images, apart from their creation during various private adventures.
A series of women welcome the spectator into this world in suspension. The first, wearing a tight-fitting leopard outfit, invites the spectator to take a seat on a sofa. Another in a bathing suit discovers the joys of rubbing one’s shoulders against a tree grove, while a third prefers the nighttime company of her rabbit, whose eyes flare red with artificial light. Still others slide naked behind flower-print bedroom curtains. Only the dreamy gazes of the last two distract the artist’s attention from small details and colors, employed cautiously on a cloudy shore. Christian Vogt reminds us here that seeing should not be a passive act.
The same is true for Tree’s Own, which differs greatly from the first series. This latest work features a series of ten metal plates that reproduce pen-and-ink drawings. They’re intended to be mounted on outdoor trees, like visual path markers from fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel. Vogt here opposes older forms of technology with the new, like GPS and Google maps. Everyone is free to follow their photographic instincts.
Jonas Cuénin
Christian Vogt, The Flaxen Diary, 2003 – 2011 and Tree’s Own, 2011
Through May 5, 2012
Rick Wester Fine Art
511 West 25th Street, Suite 205
New York, NY 10001
+1 (212) 255-5560
