BETWEEN THE LINES: PROJECTING WERNER UNGERER
Every First Thursday of the month we venture out into the city with to see what the city art scene has to offer. This is a great initiative to expose the public to the work of artists in a more informal way.
A couple of weeks ago I attended an exhibition at the Muller's Optometrist Museum and stumbled across the work of talented artist, Werner Ungerer. The last few weeks we have collaborated to gain a greater understanding of his work, approach to the creative process and how he achieves his final product.
Below, I discuss in the vlog how we have interpreted his work.
STORY ONE: GIRL
"What I do not point out, what I fail to explain to my family is that they dare not for one moment think my condition can be ascribed to some sort of failing on their part. But this kind of arrogance probably consoles them in ways that I cannot. So convinced are they of their failure that I constantly feel the need to compensate. And in this compensation I meet them with an ocean of not caring. This of course pushes them to ever greater attempts at scoring favour. They do not understand that there simply is nothing that I am interested in. There is nothing that I care more about or less about. And so, in their frustration they provide me with the thing that I love and loathe the most: solitude. Silence. And I do suppose with it comes a lot of freedom." - W.U
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
STORY TWO: LA VOISIN
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
STORY THREE: THE DEVIL IN PROFILE
"A hospital closes. A hotel door shuts. A mansion is abandoned, railroads, a cabin in the woods. Builders run out of money. The work stops and is never continued. In China, a new airport stands empty. On the Greek coast, unoccupied mansions. Incomplete. A graveyard of red phone booths in a London scrapyard. A mall in America, an amusement park. In Namibia, dunes of soft red sand push up against the walls of empty houses. Rooms slowly filling up with sand, shifty. These are the space that I occupy, the holy places where I can hear the sighs of loss and desire. A symphony, a great music that reduces me to my most basic form: I am a perfect square, hollow and black, hovering on the horizon. At twilight, I enter these places. Nothing wins against time. These places are like crime scenes, the fingerprints of a great multitude are visible. I am mesmerized by this. The passing of time is of no consequence to me." - W.U
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
STORY FOUR: WHITE NOISE
"There will be time to do the dishes, it is not going anywhere. Strange our relief, our dumb gratitude in wearing these clothes, in living these lives, for having these haircuts and for occupying these tiny corners of the universe. Ours. The stupid pride we take in maintaining all of this. Put all of it on the altar. Submit, prostrate in front of the pedestal: here, take this, I will make more. How can I appease you? I look at the world and I know it is not going to be okay. It never was and it never will be. It merely unfolds. I am not a miserablist, I have a lot of hope. I find hope in odd places, in tiny gestures. I do not do much to sustain these glimpses. I do not take evening classes, I have no computer skills and no hobbies. There really is no use for it. It is just me and the understanding that time is precious. So I keep my head down and punch the clock, put in the hours and go home." - W.U
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
Photographer: Ramese Mathews / Model: J. Scholtz Art director: Jan de Wet / Annina de Swardt
Location: Boudry Studio
A big note of thank to Werner Ungerer who shared in our enthusiasm and allowed us to explore his work.
