ANDY HELLER | still und leise

Opening: Friday, 13 January 2012, 7 p.m.

Exhibition: 14 January - 18 Febraury 2012

 

In still und leise Andy Heller explores territory, which lies between documentary representation and staged photography. As in her previous work, she returns again and again to a particular location, exploring it through the camera viewfinder, scrutinising it in close detail, before taking a step back. She then observes from a distance and waits until her presence is no longer noticed. She does not intervene. 

Heller leaves the stage to her protagonists, taking advantage of the element of chance, whilst, oblivious to everything else, they become the actors in a drama involving only themselves. They ignore their spectator, but allow her to be present. Losing themselves in moments of self-absorption, they merge with their surroundings, in melancholic places where time appears frozen. Places, which have been forgotten, places of upheaval which have the power to reflect an inner world. 

Heller pays great attention to photographic detail, and composition is carefully considered and well controlled in her images. She explores the scene from numerous viewpoints and distances, standing back to allow a wide and sometimes almost panoramic view of the proceedings. 

In still und leise there are linear sequences of up to eight time-lapse photographs, like parts of a film sequence, shot from a window, showing only momentary fragments of the complete story, without a beginning or an end. 

Andy Heller studied visual arts, specialising in photography, at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design in England, and at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, under Professor Joachim Brohm. Following on from her masters project »»äumen«, she created the series »still und leise« between 2008 and 2010. She lives in Berlin.