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Immo KlinkImmo Klink presented his work at: Ethics into Aesthetics, a conference convened by Gustav Metzger, NSAD Lecture Theatre, 28th October 2005.
(C) Immo Klink - all rights acknowledged and permission to use sought. Immo Klink is a lawyer turned photographer. He is drawn to activist activities and uses his photography to make political and social points. During his presentation to conference he showed photographs from several of his projects including coverage of the G8 Summit in Evian, 2003 and Security Operation, London 2003, a record of George Bush's visit. The work I like from Immo Klink includes his photographic record the the Circle Line Party which took place in London in 2003. Technically imperfect, (as his work often is, as that is not the issue) these photographs capture the immediacy and spontaneity of the event and give us a real sense of the commuter-friendly anarchy which was so enjoyed by the party-goers and passengers alike. Mayday at Mayfair , most recently shown at the Museo Universitario Del Chopo is a series of eighteen colour photographs depicting boarded up shops. The shops are large internationals, including Chanel, DKNY, YSL, Prada, Versace and McDonalds; they are boarded up because of a perceived threat of violence during anti-globalisation rallies which are to take place on May Day. The irony is not lost on Klink: the huge, market-domineering multinational companies which operate on a global scale are forced to retreat behind boarded up premises in order to protect themselves during protests about huge, market-domineering multinational companies which operate on a global scale... The images, when taken out of context, will be read as part of a narrative - we want to know the story - but we are required also to look at the photographs as products in themselves; there is a haunted, sparse look about them, the brown colour of the chipboard sitting uncomfortably against the stone of the buildings. The famously expensive names are surrounded by the kind of fortification we associate with shops in more trouble-prone areas of the country: we do not normally think of Prada and bottle-throwing in the same breath. Links(all sites accessed and working 20/10/05)
Urban Detour Photographic record of an Art and Activism Day, May 2004. i-D Magazine article Mayday at Mayfair "The decontextualisation to which these images are subjected takes us into a space for pure aesthetic experience..."
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(C) Helen Williams 2005 |
