Jochen Lempert: Field Work

Culturgest, Lisbon, 6.2. – 10.5.2009
Jochen Lempert: Field Work

The first perception while looking at Jochen Lempert’s photographs of bird heads, in »Oiseaux-Vögel« (1997–2005) for instance, which was exhibited at the Culturgest (Lisbon), manifested as disengaged concern about things that can be found outside the cityscape, especially the anthropological study of animals and the documentation of other natural elements within different geographical areas. The layout looked like an array of unframed photographs of natural curiosities displayed like small windows viewing the pleasurable aspects of the countryside – an unsettling incident.

Nevertheless, instead of dawdling around as we do in such relaxed and unaffected environments, a closer look at the artworks reveals something more than a generic reference to bucolic sceneries of flora and fauna. Lempert’s hermeneutics, concerned with the meaning of nature, clearly play within trends and canons in contemporary aesthetics. By writing it down with light, he reaches beyond the individual collection or creation of new information about a researched field, capturing and enclosing everyday life aspects and cultural materialisations into different textures and sizes. As such, the object photographed, the subject of the image, or its manner of display stems from a different level of engagement – the artist writes and gives order to the most common apprehension of what is the disorganised natural habitat.

The subject matter of Lempert’s work is nature and more specifically what appears to be a general visual collection of birds in all of their possibilities and forms. In the series »Flock« (2005), what looks like random lines drawn on white paper are in fact documents of a group of seasonal birds travelling south. What can be perceived as casual action in the series »Formation (Swans)« (2000) are formal arrangements of four swans going somewhere in a careless way on a nearby lake. These two works mirror the artist’s intention and desire to classify and find patterns in natural manifestations and phenomena. He gives them the same orderly arrangement that can be found in our ontological needs for interpretation, reflecting a constant need for signs and symbols to explain our own surroundings. Still, a black mark at the centre of a silver hazy setting, in »Silver Surfer« (2004) and »Anschütz« (2005), manifests the singularity of an animal in its simplest form in what can be perceived as a quasi-controlled environment.

On the physical level – testing the material capabilities with low contrasts, different formats, rough edges and textures – all of this raw data was originally collected and conceived 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. It is meant to concentrate our attention on how a particular phenomenon is related to the significance of being transformed in an open representation while being observed. These works paradigmatically take their action in reflecting raw elements, which can also personify the chaotic organisation of human life in an environment defined by classifications and multiple interpretations. In opposition to a modern established form of expression, these different photographs resemble ponds of disorganised organisations; what should have been is embedded in the unframed, unformatted, and unlevelled. Thus, all of the elements in their entirety factor into the range of choices as to what the object may be.

Though Jochen Lempert’s medium is clearly photography, in some of his work he crosses the boundaries between photography and drawing. With a cinematographic look reflecting a longing for a past long gone, in an increasingly disorderly, globalised world, he inquires about the nature of life, which we can see in »Un voyage en Mer du Nord« (2007), for instance. We, as observers, find ourselves with the same sensation as on a boat on high seas without a referent or a referential point. Although reflecting engagement towards pure forms, these things looked like they were swanning in an irrational way.

JOCHEN LEMPERT: RECENT FIELD WORK
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln / Cologne, 2009
124 Seiten / pages, 19,9 cm x 27,4 cm, zahlreiche SW-Abbildungen / numerous bw-illustrations.
€ 24,–
ISBN: 978-3-86560-595-5

Published at Camera Austria International, No. 107/2009 (73), September 2009 Austria © Jochen Lempert