Götz Diergarten
METROpolis

Opening: Wednesday, October 29th, 7 PM
Speech: Dr. Edith Almhofer, Curator and Publisher
Exhibition: October 30th to November 29th 2014

Galerie Ulrike Hrobsky is proud to present works by renowned German photographer Götz Diergarten for Vienna’s month of photography 2014.

In his typological series, Diergarten examines the appearance of everyday architecture: German facades, French beach booths and British bathing architecture. In the tradition of the Becher-school, his works possess a conceptual strength and documentary objectiveness. Diergarten’s originality, however, lies in his use of colour, which broadens this strict conceptual aesthetic. In many of his series, it is colour that sets the various standardised motifs he documents apart from one another, that helps originality express itself.

METROpolis, the main series presented at Galerie Hrobsky, is a project Götz Diergarten has been working on since 2006. In this body of work, Diergarten looks closely at everyday aesthetics and architecture in the contemporary city – using subway stations as examples, documented in 22 different European capitals. In Diergarten’s images, materials and patterns of hallways, tunnels and platforms are transformed into abstract colour spaces and plains. The photographer’s interest lies in the micro-cultural differences found in one and the same culture group.
The artist only shows subway stations underground and reacts to what he finds, he pursues the special within the banal.

Important for Diergarten’s practice is a set of rules he has used in his process for the last years: The use of colour, equal lighting, persistent sharpness, eyelevel, realism within unspectacular motifs, as well as a serial method.