Photographs portray two decades of travel, from southern India to Anselm Kiefer's studio.
Renate Graf exhibits The photographer’s chronicles: thoughts become images 1992 / 2019, a poetic work you uncover image by image.
“I am not a photographer. My images exist to serve a different purpose from those of any true photographer, they are neither complete nor conclusive. They are not image, but as language, as signposts pointing towards meaning. The images are thoughts more than photographs.”
Renate Graf
The renowned Austrian photographer, Renate Graf opens her first exhibition in Lisbon on 12th September at Palácio Anjos. Organized by Mirat Gallery and Rui Freire – Fine Art, with the Curator Tiago Feijóo Pinto and in collaboration with Oeiras, City Hall. The opening event organised by Victoria Fernandez with wine generously presented by Casal Santa Maria. The exhibition will be open to the public from 13th September through to 29th December.
The photographer’s chronicles: thoughts become images 1992 | 2019 presents 180 black & white photographs (all 100 x 150cm). Two decades of work chronicle travels through the South of India, trips to countries like Morocco, Italy, Germany, China, Alaska, Russia, Cambodia, Yemen and Austria where the photographer was born and France where the photographer lived.
The photographs are poetic, powerful and intimate, proposing something that goes beyond what is on view. The works speak of the possibility sustained by poetry, inscribed as they are at times, with quotes by great writers whose oeuvre the artwork is immersed in. They portray conversations Renate Graf had with herself, Art and the World around her. They are in themselves a language that permits you to partake in the experiences of those who inhabit the planet.
Renate Graf travelled through remote locations and with the use of her camera she searched for truth. Her photographs printed using traditional methods are the testimonials of a World and according to the artist herself, should never be seen as complete or conclusive. They are more than just an image, they are signs, they have a meaning.
The photographer finds inspiration in poetry and literature: through writers and poets like Fernando Pessoa, Rainer Maria Rilke, Tagore, T. S. Eliot, Edmond Jabès, Paul Valéry and Hermann Broch, she finds inspiration to transmit the symbolism that an image can have. To these we should also add film directors such as Win Wenders, Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Visconti and Tarkovsky – referring that: “without literature, nature itself would be empty to me.”
If on one side she sees human perception as the major evolutionary conquest, she also sees photography as being responsible for capturing the most immediate evidence of perception. In a unique way Renate Graf transforms images into presences, through her singular eye.
Renate Graf has exhibited in Austria, Germany, China, US and France amongst others countries and her works are part of important private and museum collections.
The Photographer’s chronicles: thoughts become images 1992/2019 is open to the public from 13rd September to 29th December | Tuesday to Friday 10h00 to 18h00| Saturday and Sunday 12h00 to 18h00 | Closed on Mondays, Bank Holidays and 24th December.
