\'Painting with the Lens\' (2005) by Martijn Verhoeven (english)
With the publication of this first monograph, two texts were commissioned to Martijn Verhoeven (NL), independant curator, and Liesbeth Decan (B), arthistorian Leuven University. This essay by Martijn Verhoeven is reflecting on the photoworks appearing in the monograph frank van der salm in 2005.
'...The sharp registration of the mildly claustrophobic, low ceiling, the shiny red tiles and the bright artificial light reveal Van der Salm’s eye for detail and for the aesthetics of coherence. It is an attractive, almost fairy-tale image, but the image also cannot help but allude to the more unsettling, dehumanizing aspects of our modern-day metropolis: a location from the notorious film Irreversible by Gaspar Noe, for example, in which a young woman is attacked by a brutal rapist in an underground tunnel. The work Panorama functions in a similar way: we see a symmetrical composition of seven colossal buildings. At first glance, the picture displays a dry, precise and symmetrical group of seven massive blocks of flats at an indeterminate location. But on closer inspection the picture is making a forceful reference to an alienating film set, like that used in the 1950s film Playtime by Jacques Tati, which intended to sketch a picture of the city of the future where chill technology would rule humankind. All of this is ‘in the eye of the beholder’...'
To read the whole essay, download the pdf.
With the publication of this first monograph, two texts were commissioned to Martijn Verhoeven (NL), independant curator, and Liesbeth Decan (B), arthistorian Leuven University. This essay by Martijn Verhoeven is reflecting on the photoworks appearing in the monograph frank van der salm in 2005.
'...The sharp registration of the mildly claustrophobic, low ceiling, the shiny red tiles and the bright artificial light reveal Van der Salm’s eye for detail and for the aesthetics of coherence. It is an attractive, almost fairy-tale image, but the image also cannot help but allude to the more unsettling, dehumanizing aspects of our modern-day metropolis: a location from the notorious film Irreversible by Gaspar Noe, for example, in which a young woman is attacked by a brutal rapist in an underground tunnel. The work Panorama functions in a similar way: we see a symmetrical composition of seven colossal buildings. At first glance, the picture displays a dry, precise and symmetrical group of seven massive blocks of flats at an indeterminate location. But on closer inspection the picture is making a forceful reference to an alienating film set, like that used in the 1950s film Playtime by Jacques Tati, which intended to sketch a picture of the city of the future where chill technology would rule humankind. All of this is ‘in the eye of the beholder’...'
To read the whole essay, download the pdf.
