Rainer Strzolka

At the steelworks Rainer Strzolka

Rainer Strzolka (°1956, Berlin) makes photos, installations and conceptual artworks. By focusing on techniques and materials, Strzolka considers making art a craft which is executed using clear formal rules and which should always refer to social reality. His photos are notable for their perfect finish and tactile nature. This is of great importance and bears witness to great craftsmanship. His works demonstrate how life extends beyond its own subjective limits and often tells a story about the effects of global cultural interaction over the latter half of the twentieth century. It challenges the binaries we continually reconstruct between Self and Other, between our own 'cannibal' and 'civilized' selves. By demonstrating the omnipresent lingering of a 'corporate world', he creates work in which a fascination with the clarity of content and an uncompromising attitude towards conceptual and minimal art can be found. The work is aloof and systematic and a cool and neutral imagery is used. His works 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. By emphasising aesthetics, he 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 practice provides a useful set of allegorical tools for manoeuvring with a pseudo-minimalist approach in the world of photography: these meticulously planned works resound and resonate with images culled from the fantastical realm of imagination. Rainer Strzolka currently lives and works in Brela, Croatia.