Michael Klöpfer (Germany)
Residencey Janurary - February - March 2007

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In Untitled Landscapes I strive to find an approach towards an ideal of a landscape. My interest is to show landscapes in their origin, untouched and empty of human signs, to show them in their silence and width. During these years of work with this project I have been developing an own ideal for an archetype of a landscape. I am interested in paintings of Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain from the 17th century and later the painters from the Romantic epoch and their approach towards the ideal of the landscape.

According to my vision of an ideal type of a landscape, I found places on the Northern edge of Europe. The northern Scandinavia has been protected from big changes of the origin landscape, although there are visible indications of changed nature, but in a much smaller scale than in the middle of Europe.

In the early thirties of the 20th century, August Sander photographed origin,
partly untouched landscapes in the German Siebengebirge. As at the time of the Romanticism he worked in his immediate neighbourhood, in the same traditional historical way as the landscape painters during the 19th century. Today, three quarters of a century later are such places of desire due to the human progress hard to discover. Today a six track wide motorway and a high speed train are marking the landscape of the Siebengebirge.

With the beginning of the industrial revolution at the beginning of the 20th century the speed of progress and development has been driven faster and further. Since this time, the conditions of the landscape have been dramaticaly changed through the intervention of mankind. But also the social structures and its traditional valid way of knowing have been loosing the competition against the new achievements or has been broken down alongside of them. The modern into dependence fallen homo sapiens, due to the madness of society and the own personal egoism, is always on the chase for in the early nineties, to distance ourselves from our overidentification with rationalism ”... we will need to go beyond the limiting patterns built up by our present environment and renew our connection with the collective dreambody, with the soul and its magical world of images."1

In my work Untitled Landscapes my interest is not to show the landscape as a geographical point neither as a representation of nature. Strictly speaking, Untitled Landscapes could also be photographed in the romantic areas of the 19th century or as Michael van Ofen has been formulating to his work: "If I now through a brushstroke come more in the direction towards Toscana,
Norwegian fjords or where so ever, is all the same to me."2

My interest is based on the imagination of an archetype of a landscape or how landscapes can be projected from the own memory. Landscapes, that awake a feeling of "being-there", that are evocative projections of an unreal, dreamlike, illusory utopia.

The immense meaning of the romanticism is still present in our time, probably more than ever before. Through my landscape photographs I try to find the connection towards the desire of the romanticism and regain consciousness of our origins. Albert Renger-Patzsch already 1928 formulated: "Die Welt ist schön" (The World is beautiful). In the same way I see my photographs as an homage on the beauty of the world, at least to this part, which is sill remaining in the 21st century.

1. Suzi Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, Thames and Hudson, London and New York, 1991, p. 46f.
2. Heinz-Norbert Jocks, "Wenn Augen Landschaften zeugen. An interview with Michael van Ofen", in:
Kunstforum International, Januar - April 1995, Band 129, p. 274 (own translation from German)

Images

From the series “L.A. Story”

Biography

Curriculum Vitae
Michael Klöpfer
Born 1968 in Waiblingen, Germany
Lives and works in Stockholm
michael.kloepfer@gmx.net

Education
2003 Diplom (MA), Graduation with award, Department of Photograpy,
Universität Essen / Folkwang Schule, Class of Professor Bernhard Prinz
2001 - 02 Academy of Fine Arts, Department of Time and Space, Helsinki, Finland
2000 - 01 University of Art and Design (UIAH), Department of Art, Helsinki, Finnland
1999 - 03 Continued studies of Photography, Universität Essen / Folkwang Schule,
Department of Photography, Class of Professor Bernhard Prinz, Germany
1997 - 98 Erasmus exchange Programm at University of Art and Design (UIAH),
Department of Photography, Helsinki, Finland
1993 - 97 Communication-Design, Department of Photography
at Universität Essen / Folkwang Schule, German

Selected Exhibitions
2007 Vårsalongen, Liljevalchs konsthall, Sweden
2006 Junge Kunst, Die Stipendiaten 2005, Kulturzentrum Konstanz, Germany
2006 Landskap, Centrum för fotografi, curated by Gunilla Muhr and
Iréne Berggren, Stockholm, Sweden
2006 Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg, (Solo Exhibition), Stuttgart, Germany
2005 Szenen - Positionen zeitgenössischer Fotografie der Kunststiftung Baden-
Württemberg, Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart, Germnay
2004 Szenarien, Galerie Bernhard Knaus, Mannheim, Germany
2004 Memento, Bror Hjorths Hus, curated by Mattias Enström and
Ylva Hillström, Uppsala, Sweden
2004 Landschaften, curated by Barbara Hofmann, KunstKöln, Cologne, Germany
2004 warm up, Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Germany
2004 Best Of, works from the collection of the last 10 years,
Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, Germany
2003 Works from the collection, Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung
Kultur, ArtCologne, Germany
2003 warm up, Galerie 2021, Essen, Germany and
Kunstverein Bremerhaven, Germany
1999 Nordland (Solo Exhibition), Airport Gallery Frankfurt am Main, Germnay
1999 Bergland (Solo), Büro für Fotografie, Claudia Stein, Stuttgart, Germany
1999 Fotobücher von Künstlern, Künstlerhaus Hamburg, Germany
1998 Utsikt Insikt, Gallery Atski, Helsinki, Finland
1997 Nordland (Solo Exhibition), Foyer das Beste Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany
1996 Yörük, Kunstschacht Katernberg, Essen, Germany

Represented in Public Collections
Staatgalerie Stuttgart, Germany
Centrum Beeldende Kunst, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, Germany
Kunstsammlung DG Bank, Frankfurt, Germany

Grants
2007 Artist in Residence Program, Raid Projects, Los Angeles, USA
2007 Iaspis grant, International culture exchange, Sweden
2006 Scholarship for postgraduated for USA, DAAD, Germany
2005 One-year working grant, Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg, Germany
2004 One-year working grant, The Arts Grants Committee, Sweden
2004 Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, NIFCA, Finland
2003 Föreningen Konstsamfundet, Finland
2001 Letterstedtska Föreningen, Sweden
1997 Erasmus scholarship

Catalogues
2006 Capricious, Issue #5, New York
2006 Junge Kunst, Die Stipendiaten 2005, publisher Kunststiftung
Baden-Württemberg, Germany, p. 20-23
2004 Memento, publisher Bror Hjorths Hus, Uppsala, Schweden, p. 11, 18
2003 warm up , Students from class of Professor Bernhard Prinz
publisher Wolfgang Schoppmann, Essen, Germany, p. 9-10, 17