Sunday 6 April 2014

Of factories, façades and phenomenal Lynch


This blog is about connecting some dots that don't seemingly have anything in common, except, they make sense to me .
The first one is David Lynch, followed by the Tate London and random memories, and if I can't pull out of this one; I'll fetch an eraser head.
David Lynch's exhibition at the Photographers Gallery London, is an ode to his haunting universe. The B&W pictures were taken in run-down factories in Germany, Poland and England.
At the exhibition, just as with his films, we are surreptitiously transported to another space and time. The feeling may be enhanced by the soundscape he composed and that moves along with us through the room bringing elements of motion, three dimensionality and suspense.

While looking at the prints I remembered my own fascination for such spaces and the imposing shadows they cast. Their rust and abandonment.
The first formal job I held was located in the outskirts of the city. The area is literally called "The industrial zone" and the landscape is dominated by factorie's long tentacles and breath.
Most people would have found it gloom but it was rather interesting to me.
Some of the first charcoal drawings I made are influenced by fumes and smoke.

More or less around the same time; the final year of university, my father gave me a photography book on aspects of life across the vast ex-USSR with larger than life pictures of young punks, working people, life in the city, derelict concrete sites and the inhospitable far away places. Exacerbated nationalism, human struggle, beauty and hope.
And Film was my best buddy along those years.

Days after Lynch's exhibition I visited the Tate Modern in London.
The Tate is situated in a former power station by the Thames Southbank.
The dramatic character of the façade can be seen from far away across the Millennium Bridge and beyond. It's a most perfect sight for art in all its force.


Excerpt from the Photographers Gallery documents cited for this exhibition:

"I got a taste for a certain kind of architecture and a feeling for machines and smoke and fear. To me, the ideal factory location has no real nature, except winter-dead black trees and oil- soaked earth. Time disappears when I'm shooting in a factory, it's really beautiful".
David Lynch