The Light Shadows of Time
Annelies Strba's
Photographic Family Excursions
It's
a magical and entirely feminine world that Annelies Strba portrays in her
photographic works. Her images oscillate between Romantic drama, neo-folk,
and digital Impressionism. At the same time, her apparently idyllic worlds
are in reality distanced, long-term studies of her own family: for over
two decades now, Annelies Strba's daughters and grandchildren have also
served as her models. Harald Fricke spoke with the Swiss artist
about her work.
Nyima
317, 2006,
©&Courtesy Annelies
Strba/Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin
They
play the flute, comb their long hair in front of the mirror, or lie
dreamily in bed. This is how Sonja and Linda spend their youth, a
melancholy memorial frieze to the '80s. Gradually, the two girls turn into
teenagers that hang up pictures of punk icons like Blixa
Bargeld in their rooms; later, we will see Sonja holding her son,
while it appears that Linda is turning into a glamour girl. All of this
occurs before the eyes of Annelies
Strba, whose series Shades of Time has used the camera to
observe over a period of more than two decades how her daughters have
transformed into attractive women and then into equally attractive mothers.
Nyima
318, 2006,
©&Courtesy Annelies
Strba/Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin
The
result is a wonderful document of what is usually the somewhat sluggish
cycle of family life, which Strba sets in scene in unspectacular portraits
and situations. In the late '90s, these images made the Swiss artist into
one of the most important photographers of the present day: in 1999, Strba
showed at the New Museum in New
York; in 2004 she was invited to the Architecture
Biennial in Venice. Her photographs belong to important collections
such as the Kunsthalle
Hamburg, the Maison
Europeenne de la Photographie in Paris, and Deutsche
Bank. Currently, her works can be seen in large thematic exhibitions
such as In the Face of History at London's Barbican
Centre and Fairy Tale at The
New Art Gallery in Walsall in central England.
Les
cathédrales de monnaie 02, 2002,
Deutsche
Bank Collection
© Annelies Strba / Courtesy Frith Street Gallery, London
|
Nyima 240, 2005,
Courtesy
Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin
Despite
the keen attention paid to her work, Strba has always maintained a private
sphere. Born in 1947 in Zug as the daughter of immigrants of Yugoslavian
and Hungarian descent, the artist still lives in the small community of
Richterswil, close to Lake Zurich. She finds large cities to be
"completely awful", as quickly emerges in conversation: "I can hardly even
stand it when I show." In order to work, she retreats to her studio in the
even smaller village of Betlis (population 36), situated at an altitude of
around 13,500 feet. There is a lot of forest in the area, as well as a
high moor that plays a key role in the videos and photographs of Wonder
and Frances und die Elfen: the daughters, grown women now, lie like Shakespeare's
Ophelia in
rustling dresses in moss; or they ride alongside trees in glaring light,
the attenuated branches enclosing the women like a spider web.
Nyima
320, 2006,
©&Courtesy Annelies
Strba/Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin
The
place is both a magical fairy tale landscape and terra incognita. Here, on
this side stage of civilization, archetypical tableaus and image series
arise that are related to the Symbolism of the Fin
de Siecle, although they've been digitally manipulated on the
computer. In this dialogue between Romantic theatricality à la Lord
Byron and neo-folk high-tech spookiness, the strange occurrences join
together to form an allegorical dance, a ghostly waltz in Modernism's
morning dew.
Nyima
154, 2003,
Courtesy Galerie
EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin
In terms of
atmosphere, Strba's point of departure was the novel Wuthering
Heights by the English author Emily
Bronte. The book was a scandal when it appeared in 1847 – the story of
an unconventional love that ends in hatred, revenge, and finally death
departed too radically from the strict morality of the Victorian age. At
the same time, however, the intensity of feeling that Bronte portrays in
all its various facets became a tremendous inspiration for many artists of
the generations that followed. In 1935, Balthus
created illustrations for a new edition of the novel, of which Strba
possesses several original prints. She feels a close affinity to the
painter: while Balthus repeatedly represented young girls in a surreal,
highly erotically charged world of enigma, she seeks to demonstrate "how
my images can also be about something that anyone can interpret
immediately, but not really comprehend."
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