"Philipp Geist : Lighting Up Times"

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Ausstellung in Wien : "Philipp Geist : Lighting Up Times"

LIGHTING UP TIMES
Videostills and Photoworks
opening Sep 11, 7pm
duration Sep 12 - Oct 25 2008






The Berlin-based artist Philipp Geist (1976) shows his latest photographs and video stills in light boxes in a solo exhibition. In his works Geist interprets the themes of time and space.

He creates a pictorial, abstract imagery, either with his photo camera in the moment of exposure, or on the computer while making his video works. The emerging images refer to organic-microscopic structures. By displaying depth and three-dimensionality, the work symbolises the constantly developing space of time, and represents through its multiple layers and depth complex networks.

Geometrical, spatial forms like squares, cubes, perforated planes, lines and rays, overlay each other in an on-going process and build up a complete picture in order to dissolve it right away. The various elements create a complex architecture of images which is always in flux.

The informal motifs in his photographic works (the expression with colour and form) show thematic connections that can be regarded as the feature of a series. With each picture Geist defines an ontological matter. In avoidance of subject matter, new pictorial associations appear as non-pictorial forms of expression. A keyword to describe Geist's photographs could be origin.

In portraying everyday life, Philipp Geist crosses the boarder between photography and video yet he never shows a photographic reproduction. Instead, the processing methods employed in his photographs suggest a reality of structure and light never seen before. The picture of reality becomes the reality of the image. Only the structure of the original objects creates the "reality of the imagery". In this respect his works are always motivated by a reflection of the meaning of the image and the artistic work in the society of the media spectacle and defy easy consumption. Geist's photographic works deal with the movement from the immaterial to the material, from the invisible to the visible.

Geist makes use of analogue and digital photography. He exploits the whole spectrum of today's technical possibilities. Nevertheless, it can be said that his imagery works against the apparatus whose principle function is to capture realism whilst still facilitating something like the aura of the reproducible image. For Philipp Geist art, image and form deal with memory. These images cannot be sharp and clear. They are reproductions; in the way all images are, despite the fact of the never-ending mutability of the digital image. This is where the challenge for Geist lies. Through this challenge he creates in his work an ever increasing fracturing between time and space but at the same time, time and space are meaningless and become displaced.

The found structures appear like cryptic signs, like animated beings with anthropological roots. Many of his "abstract" photographs still show a connection with nature. In this respect nature becomes the cause and a constant source for the inspiration of Geist's imagery. The artist allocates a corresponding form to everything captured and is anxious to put his emotions into them.