COMENIUS ROETHLISBERGER
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
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INTRODUCTION
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C.V.
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PUBLICATIONS
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WORKS
Europa
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
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INTRODUCTION
The people in Comenius Roethlisberger’s street scenes appear a bit displaced, a bit superreal, as if they are not really connected to the location where they have found themselves. They don’t seem to want to put themselves into the easily diffused architectural and landscape backgrounds which the camera has captured them crossing. Roethlisberger brings together people that he has photographed in the same location, but who where never there at the same time. He condenses moments until they become one image in which time suddenly plays no role. In doing this, he can outwit chance, choreographing the passersby to his own desires, adjusting encounters.
These photographs have an odd energy, as if one is getting too close, like the people in the images who also often come a bit too close. And yet, they don’t appear to notice. Their gazes go through or past one another because they are not aware of each other. They do not even have a clue about the existence of the other. This concentration and this stare into emptiness, that was most developed in Max Beckmann’s paintings, are now visible in Roethlisberger’s photographs, having forfeited none of the poetic melancholy in their current reinterpretation.
