Rainer Strzolka

Lost Places in Germany - Hoppegarten Rainer Strzolka

Artist book. Strictly limited to 10 pieces worldwideHere are first shown Rainer Strzolkas colour photos from the lost place Hoppegarten near Berlin, Germany. It contain unreleased material taken with analogue equipment in 1980. Rainer Strzolka (°1956, Berlin, Germany) makes photos, paintings, drawings and performances. In a search for new methods to 'read the city', 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. By applying a poetic and often metaphorical language, he wants to amplify the astonishment of the spectator by creating compositions or settings that generate tranquil poetic images that leave traces and balances on the edge of recognition and alienation. His works appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet, well-known tropes merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role. By emphasising aesthetics, he focuses on the idea of 'public space' and more specifically on spaces where anyone can do anything at any given moment: the non-private space, the non-privately owned space, space that is economically uninteresting. His works are often about contact with architecture and basic living elements. Energy (heat, light, water), space and landscape are examined in less obvious ways and sometimes developed in absurd ways. Rainer Strzolka currently lives and works in Vienna.