Swiss Artist Peter Hauser presents his photographic work at Unseen Amsterdam
On the occasion of the UNSEEN photography fair taking place this September in Amsterdam (17–19 September 2021), Electric Art Collective (EAC) and its founder Sandra Nedvetskaia are delighted to participate at the fair for the first time with a solo exhibition by Swiss photography artist Peter Hauser. The artist will be presenting a collection of recent works reflecting deeply on human existence today and our contemporary life through his unique prism. These works will be presented for the first time outside of Switzerland. Peter’s black and white analog hand-printed photographs, along with his vibrant unique photograms, invite us to explore our inner worlds, by reflecting on our own blurred boundaries and our conflicted relationship with the dystopian universe around us. Through Peter’s use of traditional techniques and craftsmanship, we get a taste of behind the scenes access to the art of photography.
Peter Hauser found himself repeatedly sketching an amorphous shape, which he began to explore in his Egg & Foam series of analogue stills. Continually fascinated with what lays beneath the surface, Peter allowed these shapes to spill out onto larger than life photograms. Souls began to appear. With the help of an enlarger (which is normally used in the darkroom for exposing film negatives to light-sensitive photographic paper), differently filtered light was projected twice onto Kodak Endura photographic paper. This resulted in two main colours and a mixed area, which frames the soul and gives it an aura. The soul abstractions drawn with light were thus generated with a method which in itself is not quite tangible.
On Friday (17 September), Electric Art Collective (booth 39) will host a signing session, provided by Peter Hauser. It is the international premiere of his book, which was published late last year and was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best art books of the fall. His books are signed and for sale on the stand, where his photographic work is also displayed.
The title refers to the existentialist philosophic term “angst”, a feeling of diffuse anxiety or apprehension of a meaningless world. The connecting element within the collection of photographs is the author‘s examination of his surroundings and the questions this search unearths about contemporary life. One can look at the body of work as the author‘s attempt to visualize a “Zeitgeist” in which economical growth, instant consumer gratification and globalisation are steadily and irrevocably annihilating common welfare and the environment. The photographs serve as subjective interpretations of a ruling consensus consisting of existential fear, social change and global correlations. The often abstract and cryptic compositions can be read as a metaphorical translation of this “Zeitgeist”. The images relegate to a certain discomfort, slumbering underneath an aesthetic surface.
“My photographs aim to provoke a scrutiny of the environment we are living in,” says Peter Hauser. Shot close-up on black-and-white negative film, ANGST addresses modern anxieties: climate change, consumption and capitalism. It’s bound in PVC film, representing the “ultimate contradiction between the surface and what lies beneath”, he adds.
UNSEEN Amsterdam: 17–19 September 2021
