Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The Dungeons Are Calling!

                                            Eeire feeling ....

Jan. 22:nd was the grand opening of August Strindberg´s "Strindberg och fotokonsten" exhibition. Blood-red walls, foam/dark lighting in a small room fueled with forthy, mostly in small format, vintage photograph`s by August Strindberg [and friends] greeted me when entering the exhibition space. Immediately I felt that this, my first exhibition in 2012, was an instant success ... and it was.
The exhibition is produced by the Strindbergmuseet and is more or less a complete look at Strindberg:s career as a photographer [but where is the Wundercamera], works spanning from his first "photographic" period in 1886 (mostly self/family portrait taken in Gersau) to his last in 1907-08. The most striking feature of this exhibition is his last period, when he with the camera's help, sought to document "recurrent cloud formations" which he and swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg interpreted as "high places on earth where powerful beings dwell." Looking at these photographs transforms you into a state of eerie mind .. just like watching Fritz Arno Wagner´s cinematographic work in Murnau´s masterpiece Nosferatu. So, this exhibition is well worth a visit but beware .. the dungeons are calling!


                                   Nosferatu |  F.W.Murnau [cinematography by: Fritz Arno Wagner]

No comments:

Post a Comment