KARL MARTIN HOLZHÄUSER

À PROPOS DE L'ARTISTE

OEUVRES

À PROPOS DE L'ARTISTE

Informations supplémentaires

Abstract Paintings of Light – Photography for its Own Sake Karl Martin Holzhäuser’s abstract compositions are paintings of light, composed in a dark room with a handheld lightdevice. The vibrating color plays don’t refer to any reality, they are pictures without illusion, without suggestion or allusion to reality. Stronger than the result of an individual expression of will, they are the result of thoughtful planning and conception. Their beauty emanates from their natural self-sufficiency. What is photography when it doesn’t illustrate reality? Despite a rising interest in photographic works in the last few years, and also despite a larger tolerance for motifs -- which has grown out of the habituation to computer-generated encroachments -- expectations are still oriented towards narrative content. Although the visual clarification has taken care that they’re no longer blindly believed, they’re still always given preference. Karl Martin Holzhäuser’s decision to do away with references to nature or to reality is grounded in the desire to grant photography autonomy, its own value beyond just being an image. Belonging to this, is the investigation of the specific components and their effects among one another. The objectless photos have meaning in themselves. The renunciation of the image function goes along with the renunciation of the camera. Holzhäuser leads photography back to what it is composed of in the elementary sense: the chemical reaction of light upon photo-sensitive paper. The parameters of this technical process, which he himself calls light painting, follow a strict, self-imposed system in their composition and conform to the clear restrictions specified for each work. The viewer can measure the directness of the artistic declinations of light, color, movement and space, comprehend it, and relate to it. The viewer notices their striking floatation, the transparence of the colors that glow atop one another like in watercolors, and he’ll understand that the work reveals an experience that is more than the sum of its parts. The Concentration on Light Holzhäuser’s oeuvre took acritical attitude in the late 1960s. This constituted a protest against the flood of media images whose apparent truths were always consumed without reflection. Its concrete genesis was in the movement of Generative Photography. The group formed at the end of the 1960s and in regards to content, was similar to the Düsseldorf Group ZERO. As a photographer, Holzhäuser decided early on to concentrate on light as the most primary element. Thus he took up the tradition of the luminogram, which before him, László Moholy-Nagy above all had researched. With the use of an instrument he developed himself, he “draws,” guiding his light source directly onto the light-sensitive paper. It’s invisible until the moment the paper is developed. Some paper is subjected to up to 20 exposure runs, varying by color, speed, length, width, and spacing between the lines but also in the running direction of the light. The color spectrum is mostly limited to the primary colors blue, green and red. Protein glazes, applied with a spray adhesive to the filters, bring about the different nuances. Light thus achieves a unique effect in this medium. The individual color strands show how intensely the artist is bodily engaged during “drawing,” whether the light should go over quickly or slowly and in what rhythm. Sometimes they race past, come to a stop along the way or mark time. Then they waver again or spin. Whether long or short, the actual process of the exposure takes place within seconds – after having carefully set the form through sketches and formulas. Once in the darkroom, Holzhäuser can execute his plans only by memory. In the end, single passes overlay and permeate themselves like transparent slides and make any orientation within the picture’s depth almost impossible. The interplay of light, color, movement and space becomes the actual topic and content of the papers. Deconstruction and Variation With his method of technical and formal deconstruction, Holzhäuser arrives at the introductory question: what is photography without a real image? He first dismantles the photographic process into its integral parts. By taking the camera and the reality of the world around him out, he has eliminated two essential components. His goal is to experiment with what is technically left over: light, color, movement, intensity, focus. From this he gains content derivatives. The filters and courses of light are determined by a systematic arrangement controlled by numbers, which allows the production of a precise, data-constructed model. In turn, the model can be systematically changed and varied in its fundamental ideas. Mathematic principles have their platform, individual formulas can be made the basis for changes. In this regard, Holzhäuser speaks of the intentional dependence on digital examples of “programs.“ Various situations follow in respect to the unity of his (theoretical) programs. There are groups of works that appear free and physical in their design, leaving space for a spontaneous, also emotional flow. Then again there are groups that show that the individual movements are subordinated under a closed calculation. Yet since the end of the 1990s, chance has had a firmly calculated place in Karl Martin Holzhäuser’s programs. Whether in open or closed form, it’s always about the arrangement and structure: about surfaces that drift apart from one another, former connections that dissolve, lines that first appear positive and then suddenly negative, their directions sometimes pointing, sometimes giving up. In short, it’s about life. Petra Prahl