Ulrike Feser employs photography to examine integral parts of mass culture and their associated cultural projections. The color photographs from the series "Tourist” interpret Los Angeles on the basis of the artists perception as a foreigner. The photographs are consciously avoiding the well known images and clichés of the city presented to the world through cinematic means. Instead freeway landscapes and concrete facades are captured from inside a car. Los Angeles is depicted as a place lacking a single identity, a city of autonomous traffic infer structures, where the notions of outside and inside do not exist.
The color photographs exhibited in the exhibition „Tourist“ are personal
interpretations of the artist´s perception of Los Angeles as a
foreigner. She consciously chooses not to repeat the images and clichés
presented to the world through cinematic means. Through depiction of
Freeway landscapes and concrete facades the photographs ask how and
whether people can live here.
The color photographs exhibited in the exhibition „Tourist“ interpret
the cityscape of Los Angeles on the basis of the artists perception as a foreigner. The photographs are consciously avoiding the well known images and clichés of the city presented to the world through cinematic means....
The artist does not approach LA as a traveler, coming from the periphery
with the intention of reinforcing preconceptions of the city‚s
character, but rather chooses to depict the city as a place lacking a
single identity. This Los Angeles is a city of autonomous traffic
infer structures, where outside and inside don´t exist. The artist
photographed the images from inside the car. Respectively leading to
images such as: other automobiles, landscapes butting up to the
roadside, or concrete beams supporting bridge with the intention of reinforcing preconceptions of the city‚s character
The artist depicts Los Angeles as a place lacking a single identity, a
city of autonomous traffic infer-structures, where the notions of
outside and inside don´t exist. Participating in the internal movement
of the city, the photographs are taken from inside a car. Respectively
the images are leading to other automobiles, landscapes butting up to
the roadside, or concrete beams supporting bridges.
The view seen from a moving car represents the pinnacle of the urban
experience: seeing is separated from the act of moving. Major cities
offer an abundance of enticing surfaces which when viewed in motion, are
presented and withdraw simultaneously. They offer areas without pause,
one is denied the privilege of being able to enjoy and develop personal
perspectives. They offer situations where expanses of space and time are
lacking and every decisive chance to grasp the view is hindered.
However, one does not have to stay in a passive position. Ulrike Fesers
photographs attempt to reconstruct a situation from a lasting
perspective. In the moment the picture was shot, the possibilities are
introduced. Where otherwise the journey collapses from speed upon
itself, where a series of impressions accumulate and are placed in a
formless conglomerate, and where memories are represented as an
exhausted condition of perception, the artist insists: this here , this
absolutely concrete cross-section from a flow of impressions fascinates
me and now (therefore) my interest in Los Angeles is obvious.
(a text by Robert Pitterle about Ulrike Fesers:"Tourist")
