Torben Eskerod’s photographic practice is rooted in the documentation of landscapes, architecture, and faces. As part of the Festival of Photography of the Nordic Countries, the Russian museum Rosphoto presents an exhibition of his last work entitled Faces and Places. Here, large format close-up shots organized in series invite the viewer to plunge into the state of contemplative meditation, explore their own soul, and turn to their inner memory.
For many years, Torben Eskerod has been concerned with the notion of death, which is often considered a taboo subject in modern culture. His approach to death is far from that of the classic photography. He uses outdated films to capture weathered burial photographs, framed with flowers and fallen leaves, at Campo Verano, a legendary cemetery in Rome, achieving unrealistic colors and evocative, breathing texture of the photograph. In contrast, faces from the series Life and Death Masks have a deliberately artificial appearance: one could hardly tell them from 3D models. In such a way, the artist extracts the photographs from their original context, transforms their integument, making them resemble “art objects.”
Landscapes and portraits by Eskerod not only capture exact locations or appearances but provide an artistic perspective on a dialogical investigation of the photographic surface, space, and the viewer’s corporeal experience.
Torben Eskerod, Faces and Places
December 20, 2017 to January 28, 2018
Rosphoto
Bol’shaya Morskaya Ulitsa
35, Sankt-Peterburg
Russia, 190000
