back

Theseus & Kentaur / Traffic Assistants
Frank Berger

320 pp.
with 160 colour illustrations
slip case with 2 thread-sewn paperbacks



Leipzig July, 2014
ISBN: 9783944669144
Edition Number: 1

Width: 24 cm
Length: 30.5 cm

Language(s): English, German

Author
Frank Berger

Designer
Till Gathmann

Text
Florian Ebner

Frank Berger has developed a photographic method which can be described as a gesture of insistence. He produces extensive series of photos of certain settings, in particular street scenes, that depict variations of similar, mundane constellations in almost identical framings, and which are yet significant to the photographer. Shot in high-resolution on reversal film, the pictures do not capture a »unique moment«, but rather insist on the workings of the »optical unconscious« of photography. This artist book brings together the series »Traffic Assistants« (Shanghai, 2008) and »Theseus & Kentaur« (Vienna, 2007). Human figures are shown in what appear to be opposing contexts: as the heroic subjects of artistic representation and touristic contemplation at the Vienna Museum of Fine Arts, and then again in a Chaplinesque choreography of assistant policemen in Shanghai trying to control the local traffic.
(Florian Ebner)