German Photographs (1724–2005) explores the relationship between the visual and the conceptual in two disparate practices: philosophy and photography. The series began with the idea of observing or envisioning the places where a lineage of German philosophers (Kant to Adorno) worked, wrote, studied, and thought. Twelve philosopher subjects have been photographed to date, in seven cities and four countries, yielding over twenty photographs in the series. What emerges is an assortment of interiors, exteriors, landscapes, and cityscapes, each inextricably linked to its ostensible subject at the intersection of place, practice, and pictures: here and not there, this but not that. This picturing intersects another German heritage: photography. A direct line links August Sander’s vast Antlitz der Zeit to the so-called Becher school, the work of which is characterized by formal rigor, objectivity, and large scale, as well as by an emphasis on the photographic series or array rather than individual shot. German Photographs (1724–2005) takes up these strategies to suitably present the subject matter (philosophy, photography) but also to scrutinize this very form (photography, philosophy). As each picture considers the specificity of place (that a particular person was there at a particular time in relation to a particular kind of practice), it also asks how such strategies affect the experience and understanding of the photograph itself. At its core, this project is a photographic investigation at the end of an era. Digital technologies are rapidly encroaching on the traditional forms of picture-making, and the ability of photography to claim objectivity, while always suspect, is now completely untenable. In turn, the very place of discourse within our culture is in crisis, struggling against the flood of information. This project encourages the photographic and philosophical—thinking in pictures, thinking about pictures, thinking pictures.
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