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Works
untitled, Wolfsburg 2001,
from "Drift"
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Drift (1999 - 2005)
“Drift” is representing a way of seeing the fractured
modern world in its overlapping images and contexts. I am
interested in finding the sublime in the ridiculous condition
of modern life with a Dadaist awareness of the found object.
With a surrealist sense of humour I am creating a collision
montage of juxtaposed, multi-layered images combined on a
single picture plane. Disconnected from the purely functional
sense our every-day surrounding appears in a much more sensual
way.
slide
show
LUsionen (2003)
The series "LUsionen" has been realised
in the context of the exhibition project "5XLU".
The art institution "Kunstverein Ludwigshafen" commissioned
five artists to do an urban research into the industrial city
of Ludwigshafen.
Ludwigshafen is a city without a historical tradition, existing
since the chemical industry started there. In my photography
I avoid to confirm this image as a city only defined by the
industry, because I am more interested to show places in the
public area, where people try to create their own small world,
where you can see their desires and sometimes their failing.
It’s not possible for me to see the urban space without
the imagery of mass culture, so I capture situations from
every-day-life in my photographs that illustrate the interwoveness
of the omnipresent icons of media with our real life.
slide
show
Terra Incognita, 2002
In his exhibition "Terra Incognita" Wolfgang Zurborn
tracks down the staging of
public places which are the setting of the “Stadttheater”,
Bielefeld’s municipal
theatre and opera house.
Zurborn‘s compositions of harsh and sometimes glowing
colours make us see
everyday life with different eyes. Details photographed from
obliques angles
and paradoxical reflections of interiors and exteriors highlight
the platforms of
public life. The curtain is up and we are guided onto the
stage and behind the
backdrop, where the stage machinery of the city is only partially
hidden from
view.
(by Peter V. Brinkemper)
more info | slide
show
dressur real, 1986-2000
In May 2001, the book dressur real with photographs
from the past 14 years has been published by J. Strauss in
Potsdam.
Images from the different bodies of work melt together in
an almost film like
montage. Enriched with ironic breaks, they form a complex
narration of
everyday scenes in a world full of media myths. Images of
animals play an
important role in advertising. They serve our longing for
an archaic experience
of nature, serving us with imitation of all different shapes,
tamed to
consumable, bite-sized measures.
This act of dressage constitutes an allegory for perception
within a maze of
simulations.The photographs of this book understand themselves
as a
construction of reality and therefore also as a dressage of
reality. The
artificiality of the light, the irritation of a fragmented
view and the play with the
coincidence, when still images form out of a flow of overwhelming
impressions,
stand up against a false sense of naturalness, which, with
the growing loss of
real nature, is propagated even more by the advertising world.
more jnfo | slide
show
Im Zentrum der Geschwindigkeit, 1994-1996
(In the Middle of the Speed)
The building of the channel tunnel has been a symbol of the
construction of Europe and the development of its territory.
Key parts in this development are high-speed communication
and traffic networks.
Over the past 10 years the Centre Regional de la Photographie
Nord Pas-de-Calais commissioned 25 photographers to portray
the multiple changes of the region in their very personal
style. The true potential of the already realised books shows
in the impressive list of previous participants who already
took part in the project La Mission Photographique Transmanche:
Josef Koudelka, Bernard Plossu, Olivo Barbieri, Martin Parr,
Lewis Baltz, Bruce Gilden, Marilyn Bridges etc.
Wolfgang Zurborn approached the brief in an almost archaeological
way. Similar to digging in sediments of cultural inheritance,
he discovered substantial layers with his camera, which describe
the actual subject "tunnel". But not only that,
he also documented the far more complicated socio-historic
connections and contradictions.
(Denis Brudna in PHOTONEWS 11/1996)
more info | slide
show
Im Labyrinth der Zeichen, 1991-1993
(In the Labyrinth of Signs)
Fragments of the real every-day-worlds are combined to collages
to make signs, materials, surfaces, colours and lines start
playing their own game beyond the limitations of the single
picture segment. The enigma's sense is that there is no solution
offered.
Being animated by the visual appeal of the combination of
pictures, the viewer is encouraged to read the collages, to
complete the fragments by means of his/her own imagination
and to compare the complex net of formal and contentual connections
with his/her own modes of perception.
"What in these pictures is real and what fictious, what
is natural and what is constructed?" This question on
the one hand evokes a healthy, sceptical distance towards
the authenticity of documentary photography, but on the other
hand makes the recipient resistant against the suggestive
effects of pictures that intend to overwhelm by only addressing
themselves to emotions.
more jnfo | slide
show
Menschenbilder - Bildermenschen, 1986-93
(People Pictures – Picture People)
In this project Wolfgang Zurborn examines the massive influence
of imagery and sign language on public space; the semiotic
symbiosis of signifier and human being as part of a social
choreography. Menschenbilder means the flood of single impressions
and overall perceptions at mass events that overwhelm us in
their persistency and restrict our ability to act and perceive.
Photographic discoveries amidst an accumulation of rites,
ceremonies, cult and demonstration, in the heat of an election
campaign, en route in procession or the street carnival, under
a bright blue sky at an amusement park or at pop concerts.
(Peter V. Brinkemper in the catalogue of the Otto-Steinert
Preis 1979-1998)
more info | slide
show
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