Wim Wenders
Places, strange and quiet
28 September–23 November 2014
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Gl. Strand 48
1202 Copenhagen K
Denmark
T +45 33 36 02 60
info [at] glstrand.dk
Enormous panoramas of an abandoned fairground in Armenia, radioactive landscapes at Fukushima in Japan and a dinosaur-filled amusement park in the USA. This autumn’s exhibition at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND shows a carefully composed selection of the famous film director Wim Wenders’s photographs. Wenders shows us the world of which we are all a part but which we rarely notice.
Wim Wenders has long since made his mark as a filmmaker and visual artist. With Places, strange and quiet Wenders has assembled a fascinating and unusual series of large-format photographs shot all around the world. From Italy, Japan and Germany to Armenia and the USA, from iconic images of facades and buildings, known and unknown, to panoramic depictions of cities and landscapes, the exhibition will present the grand spectrum of Wenders’s work.
The pictures have typically been taken in connection with Wenders’s many travels to participate in film festivals, research and film shootings. They run as an independent track through his artistic career, and show his ability to bring out and underscore the neglected, the spectacular and the unsaid.
The exhibition presents more than 20 photographs by the famous film director and artist from the past 30 years. The exhibition at GL STRAND will conclude the exhibition’s major tour, which has gone the rounds of leading exhibition venues and museums all over the world.
Wenders has himself said of the journeys and his photographs: “When you travel a lot, and when you love just wandering around and getting lost, you can end up in the oddest places. I’m enormously attracted by many different places. As soon as I look at a map, with the names of mountains, villages, rivers, lakes or similar formations, I get excited as long as I don’t know them and have never been there…I think I’ve enhanced my sensitivity to the things that are out there. Everyone turns right, because that’s where the interesting things are, but I turn left. where there isn’t anything! And quite rightly: soon I’m standing in front of my kind of place. I don’t know if it’s a kind of built-in radar that often directs me to the places that are strangely quiet or oddly calm.”
The pictures demonstrate Wenders’s ability to bring out the unique character of the individual landscapes by focusing on what the rest of us do not see: a strange convergence of circumstances, an involuntarily humorous clash, and above all mankind’s influence on a landscape that continues to develop and change.
For some years now GL STRAND has had a special focus on the interaction of art and film. Under the heading “Art Moves” GL STRAND has turned the spotlight on the interplay of the arts and how cross-aesthetic projects are able to include and challenge a new, different and wider art public.
The press are invited to the opening and reception on Saturday 27 September 11–13h, when the artist will be present. For press photos, information and appointments for interviews, contact Communication and Sponsorship Director Sibbe Aggergaard: T + 45 33 36 02 61 / sa [at] glstrand.dk
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND is an international public gallery situated in the middle of Copenhagen. GL STRAND presents ambitious national and international exhibitions, talks and events. GL STRAND also houses an art bookshop and café.
