Contained Infinity - continuing

At the same time as the exhibition of the series 'if I could understand you, I could love you' was opening in West Berlin, a show containing another series of mine was opening in East Berlin entitled 'contained infinity'. At first glance nothing more than the timing seems to connect these two projects. The series 'contained infinity' depicts containers, boxes, call them what you will, located within urban and rural landscapes. Man is seen only through the traces of actions, but not in the frame itself. Instead we are left only with a box, a form which we understand and see but which the form itself hides from us its contents. It was this contradiction that I found interesting, the infinite possibilities contained within a structure we can see and understand, sitting within our everyday existence. I wished to draw the actual photographic print into the very process and proceeded to use each finished print as the scultural material constructing a cube / box in which a solution related to the photos motive was poured within. These 'photographic print boxes' then sat containing their individual solutions for a period of time. The solution was eventually emptied and the prints unfolded and framed.

The exhibition, entitled 'Fremdungen' at the Galerie Weisser Elefant, Berlin Mitte, contained 5 finished works and a 6th as a photographic print box with contained solution. The series is ongoing.

What links boths series is my interest in employing methods within the creative process which can not be easily controlled, processes which by their very nature are mistakes. I want to involve the energy of chance and danger, there's an accent to the visual language that has a resonance which seems so often missing in this time of digital perfection and control.

Exhibition view: 'Fremdungen'. Galerie Weisser Elefant, Berlin Mitte. 2012

Exhibition view: 'Fremdungen'. Galerie Weisser Elefant, Berlin Mitte. 2012

details from the Exhibition: 'Fremdungen'. Galerie Weisser Elefant, Berlin Mitte. 2012

Exhibition view: 'Fremdungen'. Galerie Weisser Elefant, Berlin Mitte. 2012

Photographic print box with solution

Berliners - the series 'if I could understand you, I could love you'

I have not learnt to embrace, as perhaps one is supposed to do in this time, my parallel digital world, finding it of little interest. This is probably very foolish but reflects also my love of the real, the world where physicality obstructs and forms the patterns of my work and the world I live in. Over a year ago I began a series of portraits of Berliners. Having spent a lot of my youth moving from one corner of England to another I was often struck by mine and others categorisation of the type of people who live or came from one place or another. We have all heard it said " hey, they are hard but once you get to know them they're your friend of life", or something in the vain of. Berliners have a reputation, but to define this is to follow a foolish path which illustrates more ones own failings and preconceptions.

The series 'if I could understand you, I could love you' is intended to fail. That is the point, to understand the uselessness of trying to determine a person by exterior factors. The approach to the portraits was to purposely understand that reality would undermine the mechanism employed, exposing more through it's failings than could possibly be achieved by mark of success.

For each portrait, the sitter had to be photographed 40 times onto the same sheet of film. Proceeding each exposure a line was drawn with thread marking the position at that moment of an element or feature of the sitters face. I was constructing a measured plan of a Berliners face. But this is real life and thankfully we move, we do not stay still and any mark is only that of a reference to a moment in time.

The series is ongoing, but a selection were shown as part of the European Month of Photography festival last year in the Kommunale Galerie Berlin. The group exhibition entitled '12 Antworten auf Berlin' was curated by Hansgert Lambers and Axel Sommer.

                 exhibition view. Kommunale Galerie Berlin. 2012 - European Month of Photography

                                 exhibition view. Kommunale Galerie Berlin. 2012 - European Month of Photography

Never ending story, repeat, Never ending story, repeat

We all have our routines and one of mine is coffee first thing early of a morning. I turn away from the window as I get out of bed and had no cause to judge the weather and it's consequences. Aware more of the cold touch to the floor boards through my hesitant feet, I procured the coffee pot from it's place of rest and lifted my gaze out of the kitchen window. A never ending story. From when I finished writing the previous post the night before, Berlin has seen the air thick with frozen particles. I would be out about this very moment, photographing, but other commitments allow me not to re-live the Yorkshire Dales of last Easter.

Never ending story

                                                        Yorkshire Dales, UK. andy rumball 2012

It seems this winter has no intention or need to step aside and allow the cycle of life to turn it's wheels on it's infinit trail. I glance this March night through the windows, shielding me from the frantic flow of the fine snow particles on the cold wind currents. I think of this as a long winter yet a year ago on a visit to England and the Yorkshire Dales over Easter and the new green hills of my home land were not to be seen. In the matter of a few hours the land before my eyes was reduced to a delicate pencil sketch. The brutal beauty, monocrome and cold teased me as I fought with wet lens and wind to capture just something of that truly original Easter weather. Maybe, just maybe I will have a second chance this Easter, here in Berlin.

      Yorkshire Dales, UK. andy rumball 2012

      Yorkshire Dales, UK. andy rumball 2012

Exhibitions, marking the passage of time

Just as this blog notes each action in time, so the last year has been marked out with the my actions, aims and mistakes. It has been a full year, too full to summerize here and now in one extended post. Instead I shall litter the present with the markers of the past.

Two exhibitions at the end of last year (November 2012) would be a good point to begin, but in my searching for the images to illustrate my words I discovered the above proposal for an installation. It was to be installed in the gallery space in Atelierhof Kreuzberg, Berlin and was the second stage of a project called 'New Work', first exhibited in Basel. The physical elements of the work still exist and are able to be re-incorporated, morphed into a new aspect of the project which wishes not to be defined but constantly developed. I'd very much like to find an opportunity to bring the work out of it's secure surroundings and weave it into the fabric of everyday life in some way, expose it to the elements. Something for me, for tomorrow, from the past.

Betting on a three legged horse

Only a fool or God would bet on the weather and perhaps an englishman. Three times I traveled across Berlin and waited in vain for the snow that had been promised to materialise. It did in parts but nothing to the extent I was looking for so left each time empty handed with no shot. Then yesterday comes my dream snow from nowhere and I am nowhere to be seen near my snowing picture location. I think I'm better at guessing the colour of the next car that comes round the corner than the next 2 days weather. We haven't had so much of the white stuff this year and I sense a part of me looking forward to those first marks of spring. But the snow brings with it a new twist to the view one has and even as it melts and fades, it's dirty ridges and layers make an ever changing architecture.


heavens shadow nr. I+II.  2012 (rooftops of Berlin)

Frozen Feet, Frozen Moments

The winds carried winters fist this last couple of weeks to Berlin and let us know in no uncurtain terms that these months are for gloves not garden parties. But there are those who 'fly in the face' of such barriers and fight to have their moment of freedom. 

tomorrow you will be different. type c. IV, V  (kiteflyers. 2012)