Im Wald (In the Forest), 1986 - 1991

Basel 2019
Im Wald (In the Forest)

Buchmann Galerie, Peter Freeman, Inc.

Photography
22 silver gelatin prints (UV protection coated); 250 x 126 cm each
250.0 x 126.0 （厘米）
98.4 x 49.6 （吋）
Im Wald (In the Forest) is considered one of Anna & Bernhard Blume’s central works and occupies a special position in their oeuvre: It was the only time the artists moved the location for their performance-based work to an outside setting. Im Wald (In the Forest) belongs to the historical genre of nature study and landscape painting. The apogee of this genre of German art lies in the work of Caspar David Friedrich, which provides a pivotal point of reference for the Blumes. Im Wald (In the Forest) undercuts the omnipotent romanticization of nature to reveal the violation and destruction of nature, counter-images, so to speak, subjected to cultural patterns of perception and concepts of use. All of the Blumes’ work is entirely self-produced, from its conceptualization to the finished hand-printed photograph via a mastery of technical components. ‘We paint with our camera,’ Anna Blume once explained, ‘and this painterly work continues in the lab, too.’ The images were produced without the aid of digital manipulation or post-production montages.