Marianne Engel
Utoparch

Exhibition:
September 20 to October 19, 2003
(photogalerie 94)

Opening:
Saturday, September 20, 2003, 6pm
Introduction by Sascha Laue

Finissage:
Sunday, October 19, 2003, 2 - 5pm

Utoparch
Marianne Engel's photographs have a direct effect on the unconscious. They release primal images in people, transporting them into a familiar or eerie state. In these photographs, the world reveals its surreal side, the hidden becomes visible, the inconspicuous becomes clear. The objects depicted then appear animated.

The pictures show enchanted, often deserted streets, buildings, and parks, trees against a moving starry sky, rocks in the surf or insects glowing in the light of a bright lamp.

The artist creates images that seem like the extracted essence of a period of time. The artist creates images that seem like the extracted essence of a period of time. The long exposure times allow her to make individual objects stand out, while others sink into darkness, giving her the opportunity to participate in the image, to stage herself as a being within it. These photographs are created like snapshots extended in time. The improbable, the unforeseen should be able to manifest itself. The result is a “one picture movie,” or a compressed performance, as Marianne Engel calls it, which can expand again in the observer. The image evokes associations; it can cause a story to emerge in the viewer.