Kunsthandel Jörg Maaß presents Solo-Exhibition of Photographer Charles Johnstone

Written by Brenda Kruger Tuesday, 21 December 2010 22:31

BERLIN.- Kunsthandel Jörg Maaß presents the first European solo-exhibition of the photographer Charles Johnstone, born in 1952 in New York. Color photographs from Johnstone's Havana 2006 series, covering the years 2006-2007, will be on view. In the upcoming year, Johnstone's Havana project will be included in the group exhibition, Cuban Avant-garde Art, at the Katonah Museum of "Art in New York". On exhibition 13 November through 22 December, 2009.

Johnstone is a self-taught photographer. He has acknowledged a variety of influences such as Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, William Christenberry, Stephen Shore, Robert Adams, Luigi Ghirri and Ed Ruscha. Of special interest is the importance of Edward Hopper for Johnstone's work: his sophisticated play of light, the strong, geometric flat forms, and the profound sense of alienation and loneliness.

Johnstone's photographs from Havana are taken with a 6 x 6 cm camera and this square format has ultimately become his signature. Johnstone's work differentiates itself from the requisite Cuban motives: here there are no nostalgic, romanticized images of imposing, classic American cars and luminous facades of one-time magnificent Colonial-style buildings, on which the plaster is now peeling.

Particularly significant in Johnstone's work is the precisely calculated composition required by the format of the square, with an emphasis on the vertical and horizontal, intersecting lines, bordering fields of shadows and color contrasts. In this way, Johnstone provokes a moment of inner calm.

People, however, do not appear in his images. He is interested instead in gas stations, basketball courts, deserted cars and areas such as abandoned playgrounds or public swimming pools, which are normally full of life. It is here he records his extremely personal impression of Havana: a lonely, deserted city, whose cumulative decay slowly advances. Johnstone does not want to influence our view of Havana, rather his sober images, which are free from emotion, enable us to see and interpret the city through our own eyes.

Since 1987, the art trade Jörg Maass on the art of classical modern art experts. The spectrum ranges from Expressionism and New Objectivity of selected artists in the post-war art - from Informel to Gerhard Richter - up to photograph the 20 selected Century.

A major focus of our gallery is located on the Expressionist prints with artists like Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Lyonel Feininger, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Käthe Kollwitz, Emil Nolde, Hermann Max Pechstein, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and others.

In addition, the photograph has the 20th Century in our program in recent years has increased in importance. Here, our interest ranges from the European avant-garde to American contemporaries. Our repertoire begins with photographers such as Brassai, Moholy-Nagy and Wolf, on Robert Frank, Harry Callahan, William Eggleston, Robert Adams, the arch spans up to Cindy Sherman, Annie Leibovitz and Alec Soth. Visit : http://www.kunsthandel-maass.de/indexe.html

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