Contemporary art may be a little difficult for some to comprehend. However, the works of Thomas Florschuetz were quite a hit among the aspiring artists and art students in the City. A photographer and an installation artiste, he delivered a lecture at Max Mueller Bhavan, talking about ‘Bodies and Buildings’.
“I am happy to be here in Bangalore. In the first part of my talk, I will tell you about the works in the beginning of my career. Later, I will also show you my work in North India. When I began my career, I did extensive research on bodies and photographed myself too; after about 14 years, I began photographing multiple bodies as I wanted to widen the possibilities of my subjects. I started taking pictures of the window of my studio and experimented with the composition. The reason that I photographed the window was that it is a membrane between the body and architecture. It was a very personal approach,” says Thomas.
He showed his compositions, wherein he had clicked multiple images of a window. Each frame had a separate composition and none of the windows had a clear view of the outside.The next session was about the transformation of the body and light. He went on to show many of his works, like ‘Self Defence’, in which he used his hands and face in a peculiar fashion.
“In the year 1988, I went to the USA and that had two consequences in my life — I did not return to East Germany after that and settled in West Germany; and I started doing colour photography. Though black and white has its own beauty, one has to deal with colour photography in a different manner. In the work that I did after that, I tried to eliminate the face from the composition, so as to give the composition a visceral effect,” he adds.
In his work titled ‘Consideration’, he showed two parts of the face in a big frame. Many art students and artists attended the talk and were seen taking notes. “Contemporary art is a very wide subject and that is why I try to attend these talks, so that I can learn from the artists. His talk was interesting and motivating. The way he explored various dimensions and portrayed the use of body in photography is commendable,” says Karthick C, an art student.