That does not really sound like documentary photography …
Yes, that is right. For me it was always more about the image than about the portrayal, the representation. That is also the reason why I consider images to be part of visual thinking, which is precisely non-linguistic, narrative, depicting. I do not mean that to be apodictic in any way. Rather, it merely describes my preferred use of the medium of photography. Of course photography possesses an enormous spectrum of possible applications that is, most of all, connected to its inherent capacity for documentation and thereby for the transfer of information: from travel photography to science photography, fashion, advertising, news etc. In the 20th century more and more artists have availed themselves of the incomparable options photography has to offer for collage, installation and conceptual art. We should not forget, however, that photography has only been a fully-fledged member of contemporary art for the last 30 to 40 years …
That was when the meaning of photography began to change?
It triggered the process which might be called a paradigm shift, namely that we have become increasingly aware of the pictorial aspect of the photographic image, that is, detached from what is discernible in the photograph. By the way, the large format plays a significant part in this: previously photographs were known more or less exclusively in the format that fitted into albums and books – which reinforced the habit of trying “to read” an image. By then, painters had long since moved on to large formats.
This formal liberation then set a lot in motion as far as photography was concerned?
Initially, people were awed by the format, by the liberatingly large surface of the picture. The question “What is depicted in the picture and where does it come from?” lost much of its former importance. This did not, however, remove the ambiguity of the medium. It still affords both possibilities: to represent something or to be pictorial, to exist as an object of perception. When I had realized the first works in the Façades series I recognized that this was an ideal project to bring this polarity of photography to a head. For what you see in that series is on the one hand a real representation of a building in some city and on the other hand a self-contained picture that no longer needs to refer to something external. The sign had detached itself from what it designated. What I have always liked about the pictures of the Façades is this visual dissonance that makes you ask: is this a picture that reminds me of color-field paintings or is it a photograph of a building?
Many viewers have strong art historic associations with the Façades …
Yes, people keep telling me: this reminds me of Vasarely, Cruz-Diez or Agam; that recalls Concrete Art, Zero or whatever. So I thought: they do have a point because the architects, who ultimately designed these buildings, studied art history, among other things. That is, the images of Modernism exist in the collective consciousness and from there they diffuse back into the façades of buildings. I take photographs of the façades and turn these into pictures that, occasionally, end up in a museum.
A kind of cycle of art …
Yes, a cycle. When the Lenbachhaus extension was completed I took a photograph of the façade by Norman Foster. Today the resulting picture is part of the Lenbachhaus collection. So the exterior shell migrated to the inside. It is a case in which the cycle succeeded perfectly.
How do you see the relationship between design and art?
In this era of extreme diversification of art it is indeed possible for design and art to resemble each other closely. Once more, it depends on the context. Of course you know that when you place a handbag on the floor of a museum it automatically turns into an artwork … Joking aside, art is always hooked up with an intention. Nothing is art, if it does not contain the intent of an artistic consciousness. That is the very reason nature does not generate art: nature is nature. There is a well-known anecdote of the philosopher Arthur C. Danto contemplating Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes and asking himself how something can be art, if it is indiscernible from an identical object that is, say, an object of utility. There was no optical difference between the original Brillo Boxes from the supermarket, that is, from designed packages. A friend of mine, who is himself a designer, once formulated the relationship of art and design as follows: a designer uses his skills to express someone else’s (the client’s) “message”, while an artist uses his proficiencies to express his own “message”.
Thank you very much for this interview, Mr. Fischer.
