Exhibition Opening at Salzburg Festival
»Boards that signify the world«
Robert Mertens / Heidi Mertens:
Exhibition at the »Grosses Festspielhaus« of the Salzburg Festival
23 July to 31 August 2016
In cooperation with Leica Gallery Salzburg
Karin Kaufmann (Leica Gallery Salzburg), Dr. Helga Rabl-Stadler (President of the Salzburg Festival), Robert Mertens, Heidi Mertens
Photo: Wolfgang Hagen
Karin Kaufmann (Leica Gallery Salzburg), Robert Mertens, Heidi Mertens
Photo: Wolfgang Hagen
Karin Kaufmann (Leica Gallery Salzburg), Dr. Helga Rabl-Stadler (President of the Salzburg Festival), Robert Mertens
Photo: Hermann Netz
Heidi Mertens, Robert Mertens, ORF Seitenblicke
Photo: Wolfgang Hagen
Photo: Wolfgang Hagen
Photo: Wolfgang Hagen
The World’s Wide Stage
Robert and Heidi Mertens present glimpses back stage and in work ateliers, taken in June / July 2015. They consciously chose not to stage any of the pictures, but to photograph normal working situations using only the light available.
The pictures for the series are set up in pairs: on the whole, the main picture shows a work setting, and the smaller one a detailed close up of a motif. This generates changes of perspective, allowing for a more intense glimpse into what is going on. The combination of images begins to tell its own story – a story that extends way beyond the individual pictures.
The intense dynamics and time pressure experienced behind the scenes and in the ateliers is deliberately strengthened by applying in-motion unsharpness, while the use at times of an abstract imagery, with blurriness, overlain structures or special compositions, increases the tension.
Yet we see the great of every age / Pass before us on the world’s wide stage / Thoughtfully and calmly in review
All in life repeats itself forever, / Young for ay is phantasy alone;
What has happened nowwhere, – happened never, – / That has never older grown!
(Friedrich Schiller, To My Friends)
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