Elmar Haardt
Topographies of Transit II
Opening: January 13th 2012, 6 - 9 pm
Jan. 14th - Feb. 25th 2012
A lorry on the edge of the forest, a street leading to nowhere, the remains of a petrol station, a delivery van in an empty car park – the photography of Elmar Haardt (born in 1974) shows scenes which change between aesthetic beauty and uneasy emptiness. The sight of car parks, supermarkets, residential buildings, streets and houses - taken largely in the USA but also in Italy and Germany - are in a latent ratio with each other: they present sublime panoramas whose filled expanse is infiltrated by the bareness of the scene and its local vagueness. The photographs of unspectacular, nothing other than touching ordinary areas unexpectedly meet the placelessness of planned infrastructure.
The exhibition “Topography of a journey II” is the second individual exhibition by Elmar Harrdt in the Jarmuschek + Partner Gallery and shows Haardt’s newest works taken in 2011 in the northern states of the USA (Pennsylvania, North and South Dakota, Montana, Wa-shington and Nevada) alongside a selection from the series “Bondeno” (Italy 2009/2010) and “Sometimes you can see the Mountains” (Munich 2010/2011).
The scenes, taken in analogous large format have been created and marked by people - and are nevertheless missing the residents. Within the struggle with the relationship between reality and its photographic representation, Haardt asks about the legible societal relationship in the scenic and urban area. The scene does not just have a documental purpose, but becomes an atmospheric, condensed and higher symbol of the situation perceived. The artist journeys to the most different locations and through the most diverse countryside for his images. The individual areas may have local charm, however, the general emptiness and the resulting placelessness - the ambivalence between beauty and uncomfortableness - are, the binding elements and central themes of his work.
Ulrike Westphal
Elmar Haardt
Topografien der Durchfahrt
Opening: January 15th 2010, 6 - 9 pm
Jan. 16th - Feb. 20th 2010
Landscapes and people are the photographic motifs recorded by artist Elmar Haardt (born 1974) at the most diverse range of places and processed into serial works to form subtle recordings of the state of human existence. Within his photography, Haardt devotes himself to places that appear notable as a result of their less attractive but unusual geographic locations.
Without exception, the large-format images in the series entitled Topografien der Durchfahrt (Topographies of the Thoroughfare) - 2008/2009 - were taken in the Swiss Gotthard region, on both the Uri and Ticino sides of the mountains. The entire area is characterised by the atmosphere of a thoroughfare - evoked by the motorway and the Gotthard road tunnel, through which over 6 million vehicles pass every year on their way through the Swiss Alps.
The photographs not only take as their subject the imposing, alluring view of the Alps but rather also trace the feeling of confinement and forlornness in the valleys. Here, landscape is interpreted as a symbol of the human condition. Within the subjective juxtaposition of portraits and external shots of buildings and roads, Haardt visualises the paradoxical state of remaining in one place that everyone else drives past. The people remain within the confines of a valley, which permanently testifies to the vastness of the world. They remain in a region, which has changed so rapidly that it has become alien. Elmar Haardt works the question of this latent, everyday turmoil into his photographs and thereby creates an image reality of which the subtle tension transcends far beyond the purely documentary.
Ulrike Westphal