| | | | | | | | A study for a portrait of STR ver.2, 2003
© Torben Eskerod, 2022 | | | RELAUNCH:
| | | | 29 January – 6 March 2022 | | | Saturday, January 29, 2022, 10 am–5 pm
Workshop with Torben Eskerod “CONTEMPLATION”
The workshop will be held in English. register now
Saturday, January 29, 2022, 6 pm
Gallery Talk with Torben Eskerod, Alison Nordström and Celina Lunsford
The talk will be held in English. more information
Sunday, January 31, 2022, 10 am–5 pm
Workshop with Torben Eskerod “CONTEMPLATION”
The workshop will be held in English. register now | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | From the series "Can Lis", 2010
© Torben Eskerod, 2022 | | | | | | The Danish photographer and artist Torben Eskerod (*1960) is internationally known for his various portraits of different existences – such as hypnotists, nuns,healers or even friends between 40 and 50 – and his portrait-like photographs of death masks or wooden model heads. In addition, his professional practice includes intriguing contemplative images of architecture and landscapes, photographs of art and artifacts as well as works made in collaboration with anthropologists, architectural historians and museum curators.
With 140 pictures from 22 different work series, the exhibition "FINDINGS. TORBEN ESKEROD" presents a mid-career survey of his impressively large spectrum. At the same time, the show identifies the photographer‘s distinctive vision, that manifests itself in his artistic as well as in his scientific-documentary work and unifies his oeuvre as a whole.
Thematically, Torben Eskerod's works move in a field of tension between preserving and letting go, between memory and transience. For 30 years, says Alison Nordström, curator of the exhibition, the photo artist has been exploring "the surfaces of the world" with the camera to find out what lies beneath them and "to emphasize the power of what cannot be fully seen, known or represented“. | | | | | | | | | from the series “Marselis“, 2003
© Torben Eskerod, 2020 | | | | | | Eloquent examples of this are Eskerod's portrait series, which form the centrepiece of the FFF exhibition. Already in his first series Prayer (1991), Eskerod introduced his principle of the direct counterpart: four elderly nuns, whose faces show the traces of time, seem in harmony with the Bible verse that each of the sisters received as a daily prayer for their ordination; these verses are also on view. In his large-format portraits of hypnotists, healers or young Danish women, the photo artist also explores the power of gazes and the energy mystery.
Questioning memory also determines Eskerod's large-format photographs of gravestone portraits in the series Campo Verano (2001-2008) or in the objects in Flowers (2017). Like the memories they represent the objects decay over time. Even the artist's camera, which preserves the decay for a moment, cannot stop it – it is "a meditation on photography", says Alison Nordström about these works. | | | | | | | | | From the series "Equivalent", 1995
© Torben Eskerod, 2022 | | | | | | At times, chance helps Eskerod's photographic variations on transience. For example, in Damaged Portraits (2011), the photographer re-photographed prints from a finished series that had decomposed and gone mouldy after water damage. The series Marselis (2003) shows trees in the fog in the Marselisborg forest, photographed with a film that had long since expired and, precisely because of the material damage, appears as if it has been transfigured in colour.
In his commissioned works, also shown at the FFF, the artist is interested in what lies beneath the visible surface. In the series Can Lis (2010), for example, Eskerod, who is one of Europe's preeminent architectural photographers, photographed the house of the Danish architect Jørn Utzon on Mallorca with abstracted planes within lightfilled spaces. He himself describes the series as "a conversation with a house, trying to understand the architect's intention". | | | | | | | | | From the series "Dioramas", 2015–2017
© Torben Eskerod, 2022 | | | | | | Torben Eskerod studied at Aalborg University (1980-86), Aarhus School of Architecture and Fatamorgana School of Photography, Copenhagen (1988-91). His work has been exhibited in international museums and galleries, including the National Portrait Gallery, London; the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh; the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh and the Museum of National History, Denmark. Eskerod has received several awards and grants. His work can be found in numerous private and public collections, such as the National Museum of Photography, Denmark, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the DZ Bank Collection, Frankfurt. The artist lives and works in Copenhagen.
The exhibition was curated by Alison Nordström US), independent scholar and photography curator, for the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF). With this show the FFF premiers a comprehensive survey of one of Denmark’s most important contemporary photo-artists in Germany. The FFF presents FINDINGS. TORBEN ESKEROD from 29. January – 06. March 2022 as a relaunch: it was already part of the FFF programme 2020/2021, but due to the pandemic it could only be open for a few days.
A magazine has been published to accompany the exhibition. Online tours, a gallery talk with Torben Eskerod, Alison Nordström and Celina Lunsford as well as audiovisuals on the FFF website www.fffrankfurt.org and the FFF YouTube channel provide a digital foretaste. | | | | | | unsubscribe here
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© 18 Mar 2021 photo-index UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
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