Rainer Strzolka

With the Lomography Supersampler on the go in North Rhine Westphalia Rainer Strzolka

Companion book to an exhibition, Berlin, September of 2019Art or film waste?Anyone traveling with a lomographic camera can see better how colorful life can actually be, if you do not look too closely. Lomography is a phenomenon in its absurdity of action. She can be addictive, she can leave you cold. In any case, it is a piece of freedom against the illusion of digitalisation in photography that has turned a camera into a computer that accidentally takes pictures. The examination of lomographic images makes one dizzy. And happy. Rainer Strzolka (°1956, Berlin) makes photos, paintings, performances and installations. By putting the viewer on the wrong track, Strzolka seduces the viewer into a world of ongoing equilibrium and the interval that articulates the stream of daily events. Moments are depicted that only exist to punctuate the human drama in order to clarify our existence and to find poetic meaning in everyday life. His photos sometimes radiate a cold and latent violence. At times, disconcerting beauty emerges. The inherent visual seductiveness, along with the conciseness of the exhibitions, further complicates the reception of their manifold layers of meaning. With the use of appropriated materials which are borrowed from a day-to-day context, he presents everyday objects as well as references to texts, painting and architecture. Pompous writings and Utopian constructivist designs are juxtaposed with trivial objects. Categories are subtly reversed. His works are given improper functions: significations are inversed and form and content merge. Shapes are dissociated from their original meaning, by which the system in which they normally function is exposed. Initially unambiguous meanings are shattered and disseminate endlessly. By emphasising aesthetics, he tries to create works in which the actual event still has to take place or just has ended: moments evocative of atmosphere and suspense that are not part of a narrative thread. The drama unfolds elsewhere while the build-up of tension is frozen to become the memory of an event that will never take place. He creates situations in which everyday objects are altered or detached from their natural function. By applying specific combinations and certain manipulations, different functions and/or contexts are created. Rainer Strzolka currently lives and works in Brela, Croatia. Please visit us www.galerie-fuer-kulturkommunikation.com