WONDERS OF THE WORLD

With Olaf Otto Becker, Alejandro Durán, Han Sungpil, Kate & Geir Jordahl, Matthias Jung, Janelle Lynch, Jamey Stillings, Brad Temkin and Federico Winer

These worlds astonish, irritate and amaze: Fotografie Forum Frankfurt presents nine examples of contemporary landscape photography in WONDERS OF THE WORLD from June 17th – September 11th, 2016. The work shown plays with familiar concepts of landscape and environment. The content deals with the interaction of the consumer society with resources, in particular fascinating views of natural spaces. Using very different artistic approaches, each of these internationally-renowned photographers demonstrates how human beings influence and form nature – and contrarily, how nature suffers under this influence, is changed by it or displays a daring defiance.

With impressive black and white photographs, the American photographer JAMEY STILLINGS (*1955) documents the construction of “Ivanpah”, the largest concentrated solar power station in the world located in the Californian Mojave Desert. The videos from the Korean artist HAN SUNGPIL (*1972) show clouds of steam from French nuclear power plants – sometimes in poetic shapes and then as mysterious smoke signals of technology. The German photographer MATTHIAS JUNG (*1967) examines how the open-pit mining of brown coal between Cologne and Aachen caused landscapes, villages and their inhabitants to change and even disappear with his long-term project “Revier”.

OLAF OTTO BECKER (*1959) also searches for traces of human interference: his images of melting glaciers and snowfields convey the grandeur and vulnerability of icescapes – and the noticeable consequences of global warming.

An almost intimate view of the regenerative power and beauty of nature is shown by the American photographer JANELLE LYNCH (*1969) with portraits of tree stumps upon which new life is growing. The Chinese landscapes that the photography couple KATE & GEIR JORDAHL (*1959/*1957) orchestrate with the help of a wide-angle lens seem almost magical. Comparatively powerful, on the other hand, are the green areas on the roofs of high-rise office buildings with which BRAD TEMKIN (*1956) points out the trend of urban gardening.

FEDERICO WINER (*1973) and ALEJANDRO DURÁN (*1974) literally develop uncharted territory: the Argentinean Winer assembles digitally processed satellite images of the earth to form “Monsters”. Durán stages carefully sorted plastic waste from the ocean into realistic Mexican landscapes. These wonders of the world make us open our eyes to the unexpected as well as question how they came to be.