index

 
1. "Model Osthaus"
2. photographic works
3. "The Eye of the Camera", Renate Puvogel
4. "Clarifying Deceptions", Ernest W. Uthemann
5. "Beyond Illusion", Günther Kebeck
6. "Recourse to Space", Christoph Zitzlaff

Model Osthaus

“Modell Osthaus” is a digitally produced image carpet that covers the entire floor of the exhibition hall of the Karl Ernst Osthaus museum in Hagen, Germany. The theme of the carpet uses elements that are typical of classical carpets: border, back, image center, colors. The integration of stylized architectural views – for example the floor plan of sacral buildings – is a further characteristic of traditional carpets. However, in contrast to the ornamentally fashioned traditional motives, the image motive now consists of a montage of photographs of the museum’s architecture. These photos have been reprocessed on the computer and depict exposed views of the hall in varying sizes and perspectives. The center shows an exemplary bird’s eye view of the hall, whose walls seem to have been folded outwards as in a handicraft sheet. This center, in turn, is surrounded by a convoluted constellation of further image fragments of the room.

The architecture of the Osthaus-Museum enables the visitor to view the carpet on the floor of the museum in various ways. After having entered the museum, the visitor finds himself directly on the carpet. When he continues the tour of the museum and enters the next floor and the gallery via the stairs, the carpet presents itself from many different perspectives and angles.

photographic works

Within the series of photographic works, which are being developed since 1997, the use of light is elementary for the motive of the picture. The same section of an image is exposed repeatedly, whereas, at the same time, partial lighting changes. Thus, light architectures and light bodies emerge within the existing real architecture. Thanks to this production technique, the light develops a material presence within clearly defined boundaries. As a consequence of alienating the photo, the underlying real architecture is reinterpreted in an almost magical way. This immaterial effect is not the result of manipulative image editing, but, instead, accrues from the classical photographic process itself.

The Eye of the Camera

Renate Puvogel, Arbeitslicht, 2009

There is a centuries-old tradition behind the theme of sculptors’ drawings, but to this day, it is still not very common for photography to be of much significance to a sculptor. In the 1990s so-called model sculptors such as Thomas Demand, Oliver Boberg, and Lois Renner appeared. They surprised us with photographs of interiors, urban sites, or grotesque, fanciful architecture, and it is practically impossible to tell from the photos that they are based on handmade or artfully constructed models made of paper, cardboard, or wood. The viewer rarely gets to see these small, three-dimensional, technical marvels; rather, it is the end product—namely, the mysterious, yet revealing color photograph—that is considered the work of art. It is the visual, partially symbolic result of the artist’s observations, reflections, and critical explorations of the world.
In contrast to the model builders, however, photography is the starting point for Carsten Gliese’s work. He uses the camera to systematically feel out the space of each site for which a work is planned, and where it will be seen. Gliese explores the history, architecture, and function of a space, comes to an understanding of its character, and then directs his attention, i.e., the camera, to special features of the building, such as ledges, oriels, stairs, plumbing, wiring, or heating units. This extensive analysis is manifested in the photographic documentation, which provides the material for his constructive interpretation of the space. This re-formulation of the space through photography is not so much systematic as it is subjective and highly original, offering, as it does, new ways of nurturing sensory impressions and intellectual perceptions.
One of Gliese’s first installations, o.T. (Untitled, 1993) (1), is in the gateway of the Kunstakademie. It has been described repeatedly, since the five-layer "optical pyramid" is, in a certain way, at the core of all the rest of his sculptures that are based on photographs. By way of example, one can see from this pyramid-like structure that Gliese generally starts with the images perceived by the eye of the camera. Although the camera actually sees a round image, its mask cuts it into a rectangle. In every case, the camera image represents a surface. Starting with this rectangular surface, one can imagine a pyramid shape reaching from the camera to the object in the image, which is cut off by the plane of the image; this is the camera’s visual pyramid. The pyramid spreading out from the camera lens to the targeted object is a conflict for the viewer’s two eyes, since they can only selectively perceive objects. Unlike the wandering gaze of the eyes, the camera is able to simultaneously perceive and capture portions of the space next to and behind each other. The astonishing effect of the above-mentioned protruding sculpture is probably due to the fact that it seems to blend together, in a disturbing way, several lines of sight and motion so that they cannot be separated. Essential to our context here is also the fact that the camera produces a rectangular image—a decisive parameter for Gliese’s photo-based works, as they are all modeled on a series of planes with rectangular boundaries.
As a result of this fundamental characteristic, all of the details of the photos, as well as the three-dimensional models and sculptures, have a certain minimalist form. Curves are rare. Gliese also does not adjust this basic standard, even when he is digitally processing the photographs. The classic, unadorned form of architecture and structure determines his creative vocabulary; there is no room for extravagant fantasizing. Nevertheless, his creations harbor sufficient aspects that transcend the framework of reality. Gliese finds and invents surprising, convincing ways to visually intervene in the structures, in order to shake up our trust in the usual ways of understanding, to unhinge our sense of stability and the hierarchical order of architectural structures. He creates downright dizzying structures, such as a work for a ceiling called the Modell Hagen (1999) (2). Since Gliese incorporates sections of existing structures into his overall composition, the transitions from two to three dimensions flow as they would in a baroque ceiling mural.
In the individual photos, it is still entirely possible to recognize characteristic elements of a space; Gliese even sharpens our eye for parts of buildings that are usually overlooked. Yet because he blends specific details, they turn into a playfully developed semiotic system of signs, forms, and symbols. As in a domino game, Gliese lines up one photo-building block after another. Although the result is a logical unreeling consistently in accordance with each spatial direction, the changing perspectives—determined by the angles of the photographs and the selected dimensions—are still confusing. And it is amazing how Gliese is able to take these exclusively sharp-edged architectural citations and occasionally create an almost curved, overall composition that focuses on a central point, such as the Modell Osthaus (3). In the irregularly shaped hall at the Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum in Hagen, the curves of angled shapes are almost kaleidoscopically inscribed, as it were, in the colorful carpet, producing ornaments and repeated patterns. The overall composition of all of the works share a high degree of abstraction, although everything originates in an object of some sort, and can be traced back to its specific object at any time.
If we look at Gliese’s Zwischenbebauungen, or "in-between structures" (4), we can see how intently the artist explores architecture, and how he has internalized the formal vocabularies of historical and contemporary architecture. These structures can be described as photographic interventions in urban building façades. Here, too, Gliese does not intervene in the existing substance of a building, but simply adds a temporary photo-application, which can be as high as the building itself. Obviously, he does not seek out harmoniously structured buildings for his concepts, but rather, individual buildings or groups of buildings that seem to be lacking something. With these purely optical interventions, he disturbs our usual visual perceptions. This effect is intensified when the photo covers the building so that it seems to replace the edges of the structure, moves rows of windows, or else breaks up and reassembles a staircase, like a collage, so that, ultimately, the staircase just seems like a metaphor for a staircase. By focusing on the architectural details of a building—honing, reproducing, or enlarging them in photos, or combining them with other details—he emphasizes building features that previously seemed coincidental, or have been neglected or covered up. This gives a building, or even an entire ensemble of buildings, the complexion of a good piece of modern architecture. Furthermore, Gliese’s visual and even visionary offerings are remarkable solutions to the problem of restoring existing structures, especially the average post-war type of building. All too often, a redesign for a façade degenerates into decoration, completely burying the original look beneath an unsuitable covering. Gliese reinforces, in a new way, the justifiable demand that restoration tasks be entrusted to an expert designer or an artist, because an artist such as himself produces a fresh design through a combination of architectural knowledge and independent creativity.
Documentary photos are put back into architectural space not only through Gliese’s two-dimensional works inside and outside, but also through his three-dimensional models and sculptures. Here, they either cover the surfaces of individual sculptural elements, or else they take on a completely sculptural form when applied to a model. It would not be unreasonable to compare Gliese’s process with the analytical and synthetic methods of Cubism, but there is a difference: both occur in each individual work. Whereas in the photos, synthesis follows the analytical path of evaluating the situation, whose details it combines; the sculpture leads to an analytical exploration of the space, so that, ultimately, the existing space and the artist’s objects seem to interpenetrate. Three levels of reality collide in the sculptural works: that of the photographs, that of the solid sculpture, and that of the real space that envelops the other two components. These three modalities also have different, competing standards; architecture has a different standard than sculpture, while in the photograph, all of the standards are abrogated. Gliese deliberately pits these contradictions against each other in his works, since the voluminous sculptures forcefully jut into the space. Considering the minimalist appearance of the sculptures, it is difficult to reconcile their visual form with their logical construction and function. As a comparison here, we can cite Richard Artschwager’s strange angled sculptures—such as the sculpture of a table that looks like a piece of furniture seen from a single perspective. In comparison to this, Gliese adds a combination of several sight lines to create a multi-part sculpture.
For the past few years, Gliese has been extending his method—photographing interiors or exteriors from different perspectives—to autonomous photographs, in which the light, and only the light, radically re-interprets a spatial construct. Gliese takes multiple exposures, some up to one hundred times; this over-illuminates sections of the space so that they and their contours become almost invisible, as if they have been erased. Corners of rooms are eliminated, shifted, or doubled; even entire sections of spaces are added, without ever once forcefully altering the given substance. Unlike Georges Rousse, Gliese does not blend one space into another to create a strange ornament; rather, his intriguing optical interventions benefit solely from the materials at hand. And, once again, these changes are due to the camera, because it creates new spatial contexts. Ultimately, the final photograph contains a wonderful dialogue between the sections of light and dark; they are so perfectly balanced that the photo can be read as an abstract composition. The objects and sections of space in the picture oscillate between perspective (rendered into planes) and their spatial and sculptural qualities. Both the illuminated and dark areas demarcate very fine nuances in the intensity and degree of light and color. One of the reasons for this kind of sensitive gradation and sensory aesthetics is that Gliese only works with an analog camera. Analog processing is more difficult than its digital equivalent, but this difficulty is offset by the incomparable, unique quality Gliese brings out in the photographs. The artist retains small, disturbing features in the picture. In more recent photos, even the light source itself can be seen in the photographs. Thanks to the method of exposure, a row of tiny dots of light from the light bulb encircle the central motif like an ornamental band (5). The bulb itself can become a light object, although not a self-referential one, as Horst Keining would portray it; nor is it didactic. Rather, the worklight becomes a wonderful visual motif. And here, Gliese actually once again creates a rounded object: the image of a blooming, flower-like lamp, which seems to be revolving around itself (6).
James Turrell has used artificial light sources, as well as the sun, to create his famous color spaces and similar niches of light in spaces, but if one is going to draw comparisons, then it seems to me that the best one would be with the early twentieth-century Constructivists, specifically László Moholy Nagy, whose work can be compared with Gliese’s, an artist who also takes pleasure in experimentation. Nagy was a Hungarian artist who created an oeuvre of pioneering interdisciplinary works, eliciting from them a mobile and moveable conversation among object, light, and space. Even his light-drenched photos are filled with this sense of calm, internal motion. It is not about the details of the formal vocabulary, but rather, the comparison can be made to the free, experimental, yet conceptual treatment of these kinds of materials and disciplines, an area in which Carsten Gliese also operates.

Clarifying Deceptions

Ernest W. Uthemann, Arbeitslicht, 2009

Ever since the invention of photography, and definitely since the invention of the technologies derived from it—film and television—the history of how we see the world has had to be re-written. Even though there used to be considerably fewer images stored in people’s minds, the vast majority of this archive consisted by far of things people had themselves seen. This is now changing: ever since mass production of images began, the number of images stored in the brain that do not come from media sources has been rapidly reduced. Of course, in comparison to our ancestors, our memories contain an excessive number of images of the world, but fewer and fewer of them stem from our own experience. Even more crucial still are the effects of changing the viewer’s perspective. Just like someone viewing an object, eyewitnesses to an event have an individual point of view, subtly differentiated by each person’s location and size. In an amphitheater or at the marketplace, each person present has his own perspective, even if it is only slightly different from that of others. Even in a proscenium theater, hundreds of pairs of eyes are looking at the stage from different directions. An object in a photograph, however, or a photograph of an event, is frozen forever from one particular standpoint. Anyone looking at a photograph is forced to take the camera’s point of view.
One could argue that this is also true of painting, but painting does not have the same bonus that photography enjoys: the trust in the authenticity of what is depicted, and in the notion that, in a certain way, the world depicts itself, that the viewer is witnessing a moment that occurred in exactly that particular way and looked exactly it does in the photograph. This means that we acknowledge that each painting represents the individual perspective of one person—the painter; frequently, though, on top of photography’s claim to objectivity, is still layered the awareness that even in the case of photography, a separate point of view determines the image.
In point of fact, a photograph is nothing more than a flat pattern, made up of sections of dark and light. Of course, these constellations resemble the way the world looks, the way we seem to perceive it through our own eyes. Yet we must keep in mind that photography was invented in nineteenth-century Europe, where art had been marked since the Renaissance by a tradition of naturalistic portrayal, which was constantly being refined—a kind of depiction that also constructed illusionary perspectives out of lines and planes. Anthropologists have stated that the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego could not recognize photographs of animals from their own environment, since the pictures did not correspond to their own way of depicting these creatures. Who knows if medieval Europeans could have recognized more than just an abstract pattern, a sort of chiaroscuro lacking any object-related references. This is the way Carsten Gliese uses photography. He "dissects" photographs of interiors, for instance, separating the planes along the boundaries of lighter and darker sections, without always differentiating between figure and background.
Now, in looking at photography (and in comparing photos and our own perception of things), our experience with it allows us to come to conclusions about the nature and appearance of what is depicted—and above all, about its volume. Still, we cannot be completely sure: we only see certain planes, which our minds turn into constellations of volume and space. Gliese plays with this kind of ambiguity. For example, he implies that the plane in a photograph, perceived as a space under a table, could, with equal justification, possibly be seen as a solid figure. So he lends volume to this form inside the picture, adding it to other parts of the picture, converting them into three dimensions to form a sculpture, without taking the original context into consideration. This creates solid figures that continue to retain traces of the original image here and there: a table leg is like a channel cutting across a trapezoid; the back of a chair can still be vaguely recognized as a distorted shadow. In the end, however, we see a sculpture that seems to be governed by a set of Constructivist rules. And ultimately, that is what it is: Gliese exaggerates the abstraction of the world presented in photography. We become aware that a photographic image does not provide a clear view of the world, but simply suggests ways it can be interpreted.
Gliese is also interested in the question of "What is going on with the things that are behind what we see?" This interest is expressed in his design for a sculpture commissioned by the city of Saarbrücken, for a firewall that is part of the building housing the Stadtgalerie. Like slices of toast, segments are lined up in rows, either next to each other or apparently behind each other; upon closer inspection, their form is derived from certain sections of the building’s façade: the windows, the pilasters, the gable, receding and projecting elements. Gliese has "cut up" the building and, in the process, discovered that the obvious assumption that there must be rooms behind a façade is not actually justified. A building could also be a compact solid figure, whose interior is completely different than expected.
The image of the world that we construct for ourselves is, of course, supported by our own experiences, but that does not necessarily mean that this can be applied randomly, without any reflection, to new situations. If each of us believes that our own points of view are perfectly capable of perceiving the phenomena of the world, then we will always be deceiving ourselves. Even our own individual experiences are not enough to interpret the things around us, because then, every time we encounter something new, we only look for the similarities it might have with something else saved in the limited storehouse of our own knowledge. A resemblance to something else, though, is the essential hallmark of the forgery, or the deception. Carsten Gliese is not a forger; he offers us alternative perspectives in order to sharpen our senses and our minds.
This is also the case in his work 5 Nischen (5 niches), which he designed for a room in the Stadtgalerie. In a gallery room on the second floor, which is closed off with panels and has built-in corner window niches, the artist pasted photos of cardboard buildings, printed on fleece wallpaper —of sculptural objects whose original size can be recognized when one realizes that the "tiles" on which they seem to be standing are, in reality, the square centimeter divisions of a cutting mat. The surface of the photographed elements is split up by horizontal cannelures, which bear a slight resemblance to Art Déco relief work. To the eye of the beholder, these horizontal lines are meant to simulate connections and protrusions on the projecting and receding ground. This means that when one changes standpoints, it is possible to see that what one thought was a closed wall has just turned into a free-standing pillar, thanks to a white caesura, while the direction of the pillar in the room has also changed, in comparison to one’s previous impression. It would not be right to say that nothing here is what it seems to be—everything is exactly the way it seems to be; it is only being depicted from a variety of different perspectives.
Doubtless, Gliese creates trompe-l’œils, but they do not confuse the senses. Rather, they are meant to clarify; they are not illusionary, optical deceptions, which function only as long as the viewer remains unsure of how they have been made. Gliese’s works have an austere, open quality, and they do not leave us in doubt about what we are seeing. On the contrary: these works animate the viewer to enjoy the change of perspectives, to take pleasure in the knowledge that the world becomes far more interesting when one is open to the ambiguity of phenomena and their images.

Beyond Illusion

Günther Kebeck, A Cave for Plato, 2009

One of the most impressive examples of illusionist painting is Andrea Pozzo’s ceiling fresco “The Apotheosis of St. Ignatius” gracing the nave of the baroque church of San Ignazio in Rome, painted between 1691-94. The painting makes the flat barrel vaulting appear to the observer like a continuous space of extraordinary depth. Following Leon Battista Alberti’s theory on perspective the centric ray of the visual pyramid (“il principe”) is used to link the observer with infinity. In order for this work to develop its illusionist potential the visitor has to stand in a prescribed viewing position. This lies in the centre of the projection and is marked by a circular brass plate on the floor. Only when observers remain still and – to be precise – only when they observe the picture with one eye, is the illusion perfect. Once they move from the projection centre first the architectural elements and then the figural depictions begin to “collapse”. Deformations appear and ultimately the painting looks flat and its subjects are scarcely recognisable. Relating to this particular situation is Glaucon’s reply to Socrates after he introduces him to Plato’s cave allegory: “A strange image and … strange prisoners”. Photographer Carsten Gliese also uses central perspective for his folding screen installation “Paravent” but does this in a decidedly different way.
Firstly about the genesis of the work: The starting point here is the architecture with its 556 x 550 cm, virtually square exhibition space (378 cm high). Following the proportions of the walls or rather the position and dimensions of the key elements to the room (door, windows and corner projection) two 19.4 cm high models made of layered cardboard were made. These models consist of individual wall elements facing different directions. The models are independent objects that were then re-photographed. This meant the models became a picture again. Finally, the pictures were greatly magnified, printed onto non-woven fabric and affixed in large expanses onto the walls of the screen (approx. 5 running metres in length and 305 cm high). “Paravent” is thus a sculpture and a picture at the same time.
A “paravent” or screen generally describes a folding, portable wall that serves as a room divider or to shield view. It consists of individual elements that are movably connected to one other. The fact that the angles between the different panels are almost freely adjustable means the curve of the screen can be varied as required. Depending on their age and design folding screens are considered valuable though also unstable. Their practical task is to shield parts of a room from the view of entering observers or to hide people or objects located in the room from these observers. Gliese’s installation displays key differences to the traditional screen – ones which are key to understanding the work. The first concerns stability. From a side position the observer recognises the 7 cm thick construction. These screens are not scenery props. They are real walls. The installation is a temporary piece of architecture with its own stability, weight and volume. The screens stand at a distance to the wall and do not reach the ceiling. They therefore constitute an intervention in the existing space whose limits and specificities remain visible (e.g. water connections and tiles). The second difference relates to their variability. While there are manifold angles, each screen ultimately consists of one rigid element with a fixed curve. Contributing to the intended confusion here is the fact that the observer standing in this right-angled exhibition space expects – as in architecture generally – to find right angles also in this curve, while the screens in fact predominantly feature obtuse and acute angles. The third aspect relates to the lack of shielding provided. Gliese’s screens are no room dividers. The observer cannot walk behind them. Nothing is shielded from view here. On the contrary, the screens make something in the room visible in a new way: the exhibition space.
While baroque illusionist painting precludes stationary observers who destroy the illusion once they decide to move, Carsten Gliese’s installation demands a “self-determined observer”. Only to this kind of observer is the installation’s aesthetic quality revealed. Here there is no “ideal” point of observation or designated position. Only by moving within the space, changing direction and varying distance can we view the work. Two examples: located on the screens are elements of multi-stability. The idea is that as you walk along the piece, individual elements (for instance wall protrusions) seem to detach themselves from the picture in an illustrative manner to become independent visual objects. In this movement they are subject to formal constancy. Altering the angle of observation does not reveal a new object but a rotation. Another example: illusionist art is bound to deny its materiality. However, when an observer approaches an image surface in this piece it becomes practically impossible to deceive him/her. Gliese’s work requires the observer to look at the work in both ways and compare. Initially Gliese perfectly exploits the opportunities of illusionist photography. The architecture shown on the screens is clearly structured. Base elements like the wall, column, ledge and opening stand out clearly. By contrast, the horizontal repetition of the elements beyond the curve lead into continual lines and an amalgamation. Every screen is seen as an object. This is the decisive pre-condition for creating the illusion of architecture via the simulation of a uniform and natural distribution of light. At the same time, Gliese makes it possible to see the texture and material of the original model by means of strong magnification. This means the working process also remains visible. Either confusion or simultaneity arises, the illusion is jeopardised.
On entering the exhibition space the observer initially has the impression of order and clearness. If they linger and alter their points and angles of observation the complexity of the installation becomes apparent. It overtaxes human perception. The observer is not in a position to join together the parts into a conclusive picture. This fragmentation is an agenda in itself. Imagination takes the place of illusion. Observers are invited to complete the fragments in their imagination – though not like in a kind of puzzle but in a new space. A space that can only exist like this in their imagination. The installation “Paravent” creates an as favourable starting point for this as possible because it is elaborated using extremely skilled and formal precision. It presents an object of great aesthetic quality which makes several experiences of simultaneity possible.

Recourse to Space

Christoph Zitzlaff, A Cave for Plato, 2009

Flashes of light in the basement – initially a scarcely decipherable image that is entirely baffling at first glance. An image that is cast in stroboscope manner at regular intervals onto the wall as a diapositive slide, one that increasingly burns itself onto our perception, one that ultimately unalienably inculcates itself into the system of coordinates of the architecture, space and light. What happens in this little den, this room full of nooks and crannies under the cellar landing at Villa Ingenohl which Carsten Gliese transforms, in his typically subtle manner, into a panopticon of perception?
The title of Gliese’s work “Sklave” (Slave) is a programme in its own right. For the constantly flashing slide produced by a photographic flashbulb mounted on a tripod is a shot of the projection apparatus itself, photographed backwards as a multiple exposure in this same cellar. Slave means this “Xenolux” lamp constantly remains chained to itself and is forced to project an image of itself over and over again in never-ending repetition – a Sisyphus-like, constant recourse to itself and the room around it happening every second. In Gliese’s words, Slave is the visualisation of “the dependency of a lamp on itself.”
And yet quite a lot more besides. Because by exploring the specificities of the location the artist and Cologne resident perpetuates his intense focus on multiply fragmented and incapsulated perceptions of space and perspective one bit further. The fact that the slide of the “Xenolux” lamp also depicts the surrounding space in the cellar and, in a way, reflects this back on itself triggers a double space continuum. It in fact triggers a perpetuation of the location thanks to an artistic light intervention very much in the tradition of the teachings of perception, thanks to the creation of extreme perception. The result is this self-reflective, distorting mirror experience of space and light, of surface and inner structure, a virtual sounding out of both the possibilities of perspective of this spatial reality in Bonn and the intrinsic qualities of the images per se. “I build with light,” says Carsten Gliese. As a modern visual architect for “Sklave” he first excoriated the existing spatial structure of the slightly mildewed room from itself thus fragmenting it to then put it back together again in a new constellation with the bewilderingly sublime stroboscope effect that bonds together the images, shadows and light bars arising from the shooting and projection process, and the fore- and background as well as the surroundings.