Saturday 20 March 2010

Ruben Reehorst
































































All images © Ruben Reenhorst

I´ve been sitting on these images (not literally of course!) for quite a while now. It´s hardly to tell you the exact reason for this. Perhaps I felt the concepts they engage are too similar to those of Indre Serpytyte´s stunning series State of Silence which we featured in #2 of 1000 Words? Perhaps their nominated aesthetic veers too much towards the commercial for my liking? Or perhaps the pictured objects are too sullen to be a certificate of presence and too self-contained and unyielding to be impactful enough? Yet, despite this slow-burn affect, I keep coming back to them. It has now become clear that yes they are restrained but they are in fact powerful images, and deeply personal ones at that, so who am I to pass judgement anyway? In time, they will become a poignant and elegic tribute to a missing father, but also to he who is left behind.

Reehorst writes: "1982-the year I was born, the year my father built the house he currently lives. Now, 27 years later, the house´s future is uncertain or bound to eventually disappear. To me, the house is a museum filled with artefacts wich are symbolic for both my childhood and pieces of my fathers artistic persona. In time, the objects lost their functional value and fell into oblivious decay. The photos are taken in a clean, registrative sense, as if they are documented to be put in an archive. Disconnected from personal emotion or melancholy, this is a series of saying goodbye to a part of my own life and an attempt to visualize the caleidoscopic world of my father. Through displaying the images in negative form, I attempt to show both the transformation of material through time, and the photographic process through which I re-incarnate the objects by taking them out of their context and presenting them as independent optical identities. Furthermore, the series explores the thin lines between what is considered "commercial" and "fine art" photography, by hinting at themes like communication,global changes,and a childlike sense of naitivity."

Thanks for sharing, Ruben!