Gestalt consist of 62 photographs that were produced in a period from 2010-2018 – the same number that renowned photographer Albert Renger-Patzsch, who was associated with “New Objectivity” used for his late body of work called “Gestein”, published as a book in 1966.
Whilst Renger’s focus after the war was to look for primary things – besides his commercial output he mainly photographed trees and just stones – Gestalt is the attempt of a contemporary take on stones as a photographic theme that is not concerned by the primary or endmost things. On the contrary, the work seeks its actuality in picturing factitiousness, in the form of artificial stones.
In today’s event culture those man-made landscapes are part of a popular narrative of deception, found in zoological gardens as well as in amusement parks. The central point of Gestalt is not the use of photographic trickery to perfect the intended illusion, but rather to carve out its intrinsic aesthetic value, which can be found in the precise failure of this “minor mimesis”.
In a time where the term “fake” trumps the term “fact”, Gestalt reminds us of the constructive nature of the things we are surrounded by, where no stone is found untouched.