In aesthetically flawless images they conjured up the dazzling past of iconic airplanes that are stored in the desert. And in the new series Chavalon they captured the morbid beauty of our progress and pinpoint towards the loss of control.
Their earliest photographs and influences are the person who deeply shaped their opinion – besides the so-called Düsseldorf School – is a Swiss industrial photographer, Jacob Tuggener. 1943 he has made a book called Factory. While the Düsseldorf School of photography is very analytical and formal – you’ll find the man behind the work and you’ll find the emotional factor in his photography which is being the key issue.
In all the extreme oddness, you find the extreme beauty. Their idea of Sublime their strength is perhaps to find a beauty – even in the biggest mess.
They can be standing in a scrap yard, in facilities marked for clearance, coal mountains or a sausage factory – there is always a formality to discover and thus fulfill aesthetic requirements without this artificially beautified industrial images would arise. They also think a picture works much better the clearer it is – with the combination of high formality and geometric reduction.
This is certainly an ideal of their photography. In the 80s the happy worker has been shot while working at the bench with blue and orange light used. This is something that does not exist in their photography. If a customer wants to show working people in their factory, then we portray people, but we certainly do not put them behind the bench and let them pretend as if they are working. They think our world is honest and that makes it beautiful.
Andreana Scanderbeg (Los Angeles) and Alexander Sauer (Frankfurt am Main) are a photographic duo living in Zurich, Switzerland. Since 2005, Scanderbeg and Sauer have produced a body of work that has seen them travel internationally. Their photographic work is primarily focused on the meeting of the corporate, industrial and personal, all characterized by a unique visual expression and consistent vision.
February 25 – May 5, 2015
Andreana Scanderbeg and Alexander Sauer
Iconic Geography
Works 2005-2015
curated by Camilla Boemio
Anteprima D’Arte Contemporanea
Piazza Mazzini 27, Roma