MICHAEL REISCH
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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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LINKS
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ADDITIONAL CONTEXT
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WORKS
Selection
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
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INTRODUCTION
Digital Paradises
Michael Reisch (*1964 in Aachen, Germany) belongs to the perhaps last generation of people who have preserved an idea that politics should mean more than employment promises and war against terrorism. Growing up in the 70s, he was shaped by satellite town nightmares and an awakening ecological awareness. At first glance his pictures seem politically unsuspicious. Nevertheless they transport far more than the doubtless infatuating esthetic appeal of their surface.
These landscapes are almost too beautiful to be real. Wide valleys, spread out in elegiac panoramas, untouched by telegraph poles or multi-purpose corrugated-iron pre-fab halls. Landscapes that stir up a yearning, landscapes you instinctively want to dive into, to occupy, to possess. But Michael Reisch has preserved them from access and the inevitable threat of destruction. They only exist in his photography, were created in his imagination and are only real in a virtual world.
We can regret that, or, as we like to do with objects out of reach, drive our desire to higher dimensions. But we can also use these unharmed idylls as a stimulus to think about the compatibility of our pursuit of happiness and the responsibility we have.
The special quality of these photographs is doubtlessly their irritating lack of catastrophes, that they do not shock the viewer by presenting destruction of nature and other horrors. Their beauty lies in the absence of humans. We are shut out, thrown out of paradise, to remain in front of the picture. As viewers we can look back and ask ourselves, why landscapes like these can only survive in our dreams and in computers.
Dr. Boris von Brauchitsch
