LOCUS AMOENUS - Forest and Reality
Photographs from Markus Hippmann
In the exhibition “LOCUS AMOENUS” the photographer Markus Hippmann is constructing the forest as a ‘place of delight’. In high contrast, black and white photographs he is showing an idealised nature in which the world is still intact. The sun casts the forest into a mysterious twilight and animals are venturing out of the shadows in search of food. The photographs appear as if they have come out of an old nature textbook. This is a forest just as you imagine it! Imagine it? The idyll is fragile and appearances are deceptive.
The deeper one intrudes into the forest the more apparent it becomes that nature is not an ideal world anymore, that is if it has ever been one. Broken and splintered trees bear witness to the fragility of the woodland, however despite this the photographs of animals in the forestation are almost too beautiful to be true! Is this forest therefore real or does the beauty of the nature only exist in a world of will and representation? What is, from our perspective on nature, even to be considered real or fiction? The answer to these questions is left up to the viewers of the photography exhibition to decide upon. There are many possible ways to interpret the images of real or apparent idyll in the forest. Anyone who looks closely will draw his or her own conclusions from the photography of Markus Hippmann.
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