Balthasar Burkhard,
March 10- May 31, 2008
It’s not too late to see world-class photography at the Balthasar Burkhard exhibit in the SCALO/GUYE gallery. There, one can see massive silver gelatin prints of Los Angeles, Shanghai, Namibia and the clouds. Having Burkhard’s prints on display in the City of Angeles is no small feat. “It took me two years and seeing him three times in person…” says gallery co-owner and spokesperson, Christophe Guye. As such, Burkhard, who recently had 23 museum shows around the globe, is a welcome sight for L.A.’s photography collectors and lovers alike. Guye adds more urgency: “maybe they’ve seen one of his shows in Europe, but they haven’t seen him here… his iconic works are selling out”. Since this is “Burkhard’s first exhibition in the USA since 1980”, the time to see the photos is now.
Paying attention to systemic interrelations, both inherent and deliberate is the journey laid out by Burkhard. He depicts small communities and networks melding into giants who at times seem to embolden and engulf the wee ones below, as opposed to Ansel Adam’s portrayals of profound singularities standing nobly. Prodigious items—e.g., a mangrove canopy, a city or a dune—are reflections of the smaller roots, cars and sand that create them.
“Los Angeles” (1999, silver gelatin print on barite paper, 62’’x49’’, edition 1/5), depicts a city having difficulty in finding where to go. Highways are at the forefront of the piece and they are everywhere. Heading vertically and horizontally, being sinuous and straight, they go from extreme close-up to extreme long-shot as they fade into a horizon where smog and sea fade into bright gray. A dwarfed downtown is one of several pit-stops within a haphazard network of single-story residential units, swaths of industrial warehouses, isolated oases of open fields and parking lots. Seeing the city from the photo’s aerial-shot showcases absurd visual organizations run amok. Vegetative growth is hard to find, but in an extreme close up, on the lower right-hand corner, rests a clump of pines. This is the only sign of quasi-wild growth the entire plane has and it shoots out at the viewer. Everything else seems to be an enveloping artifice made of cement and automobile. But some other trees and grass grow at the center of a highway interchange island which is also the photo’s center. The heart of the photo’s argument is whether LA’s wish to preserve an ocean of single story construction and streets has destroyed open space and visual satisfaction. With these drowning roads going on forever, it’s hard to say what is beautiful or destructive. All together, it is magnificent.
Taking crises of history and development further, “Shanghai” (2005, silver gelatin print on barite paper, 52’’x80’’, edition 2/7) shows the huge potential and consequences of the world’s mega cities. The effects of globalization are shown through a skyline that could belong to São Paulo. With menacing skyscrapers going on forever, one wonders if there is any indication that this is China at all. Then, China happens on a building at the front, left-hand side with a disappearing emblem: “SHANGHAI COMPUTER FACTORY”. It is appropriate that right next to it is another tower so large that it can not fit in either the top or bottom frame being constructed before the viewer’s eyes. As it crushes the former, “out with the old and in with the new” seems to be the photo’s point. But, as it is with any of Burkhard’s works, meaning comes from slowly drinking in details. At the bottom level, underneath all the crushing skyscrapers, is a different ecosystem of 2-story Victorian style houses and shops. Tiny cars and a person scuttle along. This is also the level where Chinese writing exists. It is here–within a nearly invisible stratum that supports giants–where the viewer wonders about humanity’s strength, distinction and exhaustion.
After exploring Shanghai and Los Angeles, it’s easy to fall into civic projections when looking at “Namibia” (1999, silver gelatin print on barite paper, 49’’x102.4’’, edition 5/5). As a photo of a dune in the center of two ranges to its left and right, the work once again focuses on collaboration. And the result is taxing. Thankfully, one piece sends its viewer up to the clouds. “Clouds” (2005, silver gelatin print on barite paper, 62’’x49’’, edition 4/7) is an amorphous family of gray, offering great satisfaction as the miniscule and the mammoth slip in and out of one another without friction. Once again, the size and scope of the print invites wandering and scrutiny. But here, it’s mostly just wandering. Unlike other photos, distance is not defined as what’s close and far simply become one thing. Plurality and singularity exist side by side and it is here where Burkhard may have felt at home. Accordingly, “[l]ooking [from] airplanes was part of Burkhard’s formative childhood experience. Both his father and uncle were pilots.”
The sweep of Burkhard’s works is impressive. “A picture weighs about two hundred and fifty pounds,” says Guye. “Just to produce one costs five to seven thousand dollars.” With digital methods having usurped the old ways of taking pictures, Burkhard’s works frankly show how traditional photography is an intimate and arduous task. And it is that hands-on approach which makes his works as big as life.
Address: Scalo/Guye
302 North Robertson Boulevard,
West Hollywood, CA 90048
310-358-9396
All images courtesy of Scalo/Guye Gallery
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