Bernd Nicolaisen, Restlicht, Schloss Sihlberg, Zürich, CH, 2017

Photographs – Tableaux – Lightboxes
Scheublein + Bak, Schloss Sihlberg, Zürich 20. Mar. 2017 – 31. Dec. 2017


Glaciers, volcanoes and caverns: the Swiss Photographer, Bernd Nicolaisen, compiled unique images of these phenomena of landscape in the pictures he took in Iceland between 2004 and 2017. More than 20, in part wall-size, exhibits (Photographs – Tableaux – Lightboxes) are presented in a Jeff Wall style, partially in light boxes. Nature, depicted in a seemingly untouched and magical way, appears to be from a remote planet. Places of solitude, silence, melancholy and even spirituality in a special manner accentuate the spatiality of Zurich’s “Great Minster” cathedral. In absence of man and beast, we witness tremendously bizarre natural landscapes. The appeal of each shot is emphasized by extreme lighting conditions. Nicolaisen is obsessed with finding the perfect, barely remaining light for his images: the residual light of the day just before nightfall.

The compositions reveal fine nuances of color in monochrome tones, modulating from ice-blue to gray. Bernd Nicolaisen explores the structure and surface of glaciers and ice in particular, to visualize it in an expressive, yet documentary way.

The viewer sees accurately observed details of glacial surfaces. From a distance, these atmospherically dense pictures achieve shape and depth, yet up close they crumble into crystalline shapes and structures. Nicolaisen’s glaicial pictures feature an analog rhythm of light and time, based on the internal experience of the artist. He perceives landscape not only visually but also emotionally. Nicolaisen develops a consistent photographic perception, which turns the surface of a landscape into a designed and reduced image, without losing touch with the motif. In his conceptual design of natural shapes, human intervention rarely becomes apparent. No creature or signs of civilization are portrayed. The photographer has elevated the sublime, wild and pristine in the grandiose nature of glaciers, arctic sea and mountain ranges to an independent art form.


CATALOG
»Restlicht – Bernd Nicolaisen. Photographs – Tableaux – Lightboxes: Iceland 2004-2015.«
Preface Klaus Honnef, with texts by Andrea Henkens, Stephan Reisner, Christoph Sigrist, Andres Staeger
Design: Walter Stähli
Publisher: Hatje Cantz. German/English 2015. 192 pages, 108 images 25.2 x 30.2 cm linen
ISBN 978-3-7757-4061-6