Vera Lutter: SPECTACULAR. An Exploration of Light

Fondazione MAST presents SPECTACULAR. An Exploration of Light by German artist Vera Lutter (Kaiserslautern, 1960), which brings together for the first time, a large selection of photographs, spanning from the 1990s to the present day. The collection focuses on the themes of industry, work and infrastructure that facilitate the movement of goods and people.

From October 11 to January 6, the MAST Galleries will showcase 20 large-scale works—unique pieces distinguished by the special techniques used in their creation. These works come from museums and private collections and will be accompanied by an installation and a series of largely unseen materials that document the photographer’s creative process. The exhibition is arranged in a way that offers the visitor a panoramic overview of her entire career.

Vera Lutter initially trained as a sculptor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich before moving to New York in the mid-1990s to study at the School of Visual Arts. It was there that she discovered her passion for photography, developing a unique process that harkens back to the origins of the medium. Her works are created using a camera obscura and require very long exposure times, which means they cannot capture objects that move quickly within the field of view. They are negative images and unique pieces that cannot be reproduced.

Large camera obscuras, often the size of an entire room, are specially set up in front of the subjects, where they remain for exposure times ranging from a few minutes to months at a time depending on the size of the pinhole and the light conditions.

The artist physically enters in the camera obscura, effectively becoming an inhabitant of the camera, which transforms into an architectural artefact. This process results in large-format prints made with the largest sheets of photosensitive paper available on the market, impressed directly inside the darkroom. As curator Francesco Zanot explains, these works are “Spectacular, without any inference of ostentation,” “but due to the fact that they focus on the experience of the public, transporting it into a dimension that transcends the ordinary.”

The subjects of Vera Lutter’s images—buildings, machines, industrial objects, and the very devices used to represent them—are monumental and timeless. Her work features sites such as the Hambach coal mine, one of the largest in the world; Battersea Power Station in London, the largest brick building in Europe; the Zeppelin, the largest flying machine ever built; and the Effelsberg radio telescope, which has a record diameter of 100 metres. She also captures sites such as the Pepsi Cola factory on Long Island, and various airports and shipyards in the USA and Europe, both active and disused. Occasionally, the artist repurposes containers normally used in maritime and intermodal transport, modifying them to serve as darkrooms. Using this method she photographs locations such as the Rostock shipyards, among the largest in Europe, and operational since the end of the 18th century.

Her works often challenge the boundaries of space and time, serving not only as impeccable reproductions, but also genuine apparitions. Vera Lutter’s multidimensional photographs transcend the surface of reality.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Fondazione MAST, featuring over forty images, including all the works on display. This catalogue serves as a fundamental and comprehensive resource, exploring the relationship between Vera Lutter’s work and the industrial subject.

Fondazione MAST (Manifattura di Arti, Sperimentazione e Tecnologia) is a non-profit organisation founded in Bologna in 2013. Located next to the headquarters of the Coesia industrial group, in a multifunctional complex conceived as an intermediary between the company and the community, MAST is an open place of sharing and collaboration where every citizen has access to learning, the arts and photography. The exhibition spaces house temporary exhibitions dedicated to photography on industry and work.

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