A new photo book, Gudrun Kemsa: New York, New York (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de), visually explores the city that never sleeps and the stage it sets for the people living, working, walking through the steets of Manhattan.
In his short, introductory text to the work of the female photographer Gudrun Kemsa (*1961 in Germany), Tayfun Belgin cites the artist with the following words, made in connection with the picture series Manhattan: “Urban architecture becomes a stage on which the protagonists act. The light in Manhattan is bright and clear and it seems almost as if it was only created to perfectly illuminate the whole scenery of this huge stage in a natural way…”
Tayfun Belgin continues in his own words to describe the world as a stage where everything is in a state of flux, as the pre-Socratics taught us. Hence, reality occurs in the plural; we never obtain just one single picture of this world. Especially cities offer a stage on which infinite performances of people moving purposefully or casually and freely take place each day.
Gudrun Kemsa observes people in the streets of Manhattan. According to Tayfun Belgin, she does not focus on other parts of the city such as Little Italy or Harlem, which are also frequently photographed and found in innumerable films. But they inspire narratives that are not Gudrun Kemsa’s focus such as myths of heroes, mafia bosses, brilliant jazz musicians, etc.
Tayfun Belgin writes that the photographer Gudrun Kemsa observes while others act. She perceives actions that we miss due to a lack of time and interest. You need time to notice the ephemeral. She masters the principle of juxtaposition and connection. Gudrun Kemsa observes the opposite side of the street with concentration, and waits until people she does not know come together and provide her with a motif for a picture. They are eternalized by her photographs. It is this decisive moment, to use the words of Cartier-Bresson (German article), that inspired Gudrun Kemsa. No drama in five acts can be retraced in her New York photos; the basic tenor is the ephemeral. She does not provide a narrative about the people in her pictures; they are merely portrayed. People stand at street corners in front of banks, famous department stores and luxury boutiques such as Louis Vuitton and BVLGARI.
Tayfun Belgin underlines that the artworks in this book reveal a principle in Gudrun Kemsa’s photography today: she composes her photographs with baselines, with verticals and horizontals. They are supplemented with windows as frames for passersby and door entrances with a strict geometry, which serve as master axes: traffic lights, columns, etc.
Tayfun Belgin stresses that it is Gudrun Kemsa’s artistic intention to show a world of beautiful appearances, symbolized by Manhattan’s magnificent Fifth Avenue. No dirty objects, all of which the photographer consistently retouches, fit into this immaculately tidy world.
Another section of the photo book deals with images taken in subway stations. Gudrun Kemsa writes on page 73: “The New York Subway was opened in 1904 and is one of the oldest subway networks in the world. Today’s complex around Pennsylvania Station, with its maze of underground corridors, is a special place for me. Here I find motifs for my photographs and video installations. Here, people from vastly diverse backgrounds meet as if on a stage. Their different movements and speeds are perceptible, and individual fates or stories of interpersonal lives become visible.”
Another part of Gudrum Kemsa: New York, New Order offers video stills. For instance, two cameras observe the entrance to the Apple Store in front of the General Motors building on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. Here too, the bright and clear light of Manhattan is present.
To me, only the two photographs on pages 52 and 53 offer the hint of something else — it may be due to my pdf, the hardcover book is in Berlin — : the melancholy of a Hopper painting.
Gudrum Kemsa: New York, New York. Photos by Gudrum Kemsa, text by Tayfun Belgin (in English and German), Hardcover, Kerber Verlag, 2020, 104 pages. Order the book from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de.
[Added on March 29, 2020 at 00:13 Swiss time: This book was published to accompany the exhibition Gudrum Kemsa: New York, New York. The original exhibition schedule, sabotaged by Covid-19: Osthaus Museum Hagen from January 25 until March 1, 2020; Museum Moderner Kunst Wörlen, Passau from March 6 until June 20, 2021; Kunsthalle Erfurt from August 1 until October 10, 2021; check the museum websites to find out when the works will be shown].
For a better reading, quotations and partial quotations from the book reviewed here are not put between quotation marks.
Beauty items at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
Book review added on March 28, 2020 at 23:47 Swiss time.
