Jochen Lempert: Field Work

Culturgest (Lisboa)
Jochen Lempert: Field Work

At the beginning, as we walked through the different exhibition rooms on the ground floor of the main building of the Caixa Geral de Depósitos (Lisbon), the perception of Jochen Lempert work’s manifested a disengaged anthropological concern about the study of the birds and other elements from different geographical areas. However, instead of dawdling around, a closer look at the artworks reveals something more than this generic reference to the collection or creation of new information about the researched field. Either though the object photographed, the subject of the image or in how it is displayed.

The subject matter of his work is nature, and in particular what looks like a general visual collection of birds in all their possibilities and demonstrations: the series Flock (2005) looked like random lines drawn on a white paper, but in fact it is images documenting a number of birds travelling together; on what can be perceived as a casual action the series Formation (Swans) (2000) are formal arrangements of four swans; while Strange Birds – The invasion of Central Europe by the Waxwing in the Year 2004 (2005) captures and documents an idealized explanation about movement.

On another level, testing the material capabilities with low contrasts, different formats, rough edges and textures, all this raw data is originally collected and displayed by Lempert in an attempt to reduce the observer bias on the phenomenon being observed, and on the interpretation of the reflected realities and significations.

Jochen Lempert medium is clearly photography, but in some of his work he crosses the boundaries between photography and drawing. With a cinematographic look he makes the same inquire about the nature of life that we see in Un voyage en Mer du Nord (2007), for instance. We, as observers, find ourselves with the same sensation as when on a boat on high seas without any referent or referential point.

Published at Lapiz, Revista Internacional de Arte. Año XXVIII, Núm. 253 (87), Mayo 2009 España © Jochen Lempert, "Anschütz", 2006