André Lichtenberg’s Paris Nord – Within Series at Holden Luntz Gallery
André Lichtenberg, Paris Nord, 2014 (Within Series), 2014, printed 2016, C-type Photograph
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT HOLDEN LUNTZ GALLERY, ON January 24, 2018. READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT HOLDEN LUNTZ GALLERY, ON january 24, 2018. READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE.
André Lichtenberg’s large-scale cityscapes address issues of process, technology, and remembrance. His series, Within, constructs images from hundreds of architectural photographs and explore the cityscape’s profile in a distinct perspective; through a painterly study of the city in situ and its effects on memory through inverted colors and carefully crafted compositions. In Paris Nord – Within Series, Lichtenberg utilizes a concept similar to drawing while constructing a multifaceted image. The sheer process of presenting so much detailed information is perhaps a metaphor for an extended dialogue. The parts of the whole all relate to one another either through form or subject.
Lichtenberg was born in the of south Brazil to mixed European heritage. As a child, he grew up in the expansive urban architecture of Porto Alegre and traveled with his family, influencing his future work, saying
“we [our family] had occasional trips to the seaside and hilly countryside, and I really enjoyed those landscapes… My father used to draw romantic European scenes in a very realistic style – mostly rural landscapes involving alpine style mountains and lakes.”
Lichtenberg recalls his own architectural drawings made as a child, saying
“I used to draw buildings and cityscapes from a bird’s eye view point, as if I were on the roof top of a very tall building, or complex motorway junctions as seen from a helicopter… There was a sense of precision in those pictures; an almost mathematical precision.”
His educational background in the sciences also influences his style, studying Civil Engineering before receiving degrees in the photographic arts and sciences.
Andre Lichtenberg developed selective techniques for studying the city in the solitude of night. He started the Within series, after the passing of his father and began his time-consuming photographic assemblages, taken from the view of his father’s balcony overlooking the city, one of his father’s favorite places. During the process of developing the image is also the time when the photographer’s youngest son was born. Lichtenberg then immerses himself in the piece, detailing childhood memories, recalling the city’s electrical grid “mini blackouts” he experienced as a child and initiating a conversation through the generations of his personal timeline.
“he [my father] had written to me several poetic and philosophical letters about that landscape, often describing it at night, while the city was illuminated by the moonlight.”
It is here that the photographer recognizes the reflective potential of his large-scale, process oriented work. In the work, Floresta, Brahma, 2012 that so closely associates the photographer’s proximity to his father, is a profound and sentimental approach to communicate. Here, Lichtenberg cements a process that not only offers the persistence of memory that photography encompasses, but also the catharsis that the process of a meticulous drawing can create.
The laborious series also reads as autobiographical narratives to the cities he portrays. In the series, the artist profiles world capitals to present microcosm-like photographs of great metropolitan areas, investigating their urban drama. His large-scale series examines; the preciseness of the buildings, the difference in architectural styles, and the varying elevations while simultaneously providing historical and cultural traces.
The photographs allow Lichtenberg to recreate the city. We see the parts of the whole and in the finished photograph we sense an accumulation of energy acting to weave together the almost countless elements that these city landscapes contain. Lichtenberg’s cityscapes are as ambitious as they are majestic and provide a fascinating investigation into the architecture and design of major urban cities.
