Elger Esser : Ansichten ; Bilder aus dem Archiv, 2004-2008 = Views ; pictures from the archive = Vues

We cite from the cover: /
"River courses, coasts, choppy seas-water has been a recurring theme in Elger Esser's photographic landscapes and vedutas since the very beginning. For his latest works, Esser, who was born in 1967, grew up in Rome and studied under Becher, drew inspiration from his extensive collection of old postcards from the period around 1900: hand-painted images of beaches with bathers and boats, rocks, spray and white crests. By manipulating the pictures and enlarging sections, often to far greater than the original size, he has created fascinating new images, coarsegrained "sea pieces" in matte, strange colors which invoke times gone by and the memories of seaside holidays associated with them. Here, Esser evokes an aesthetic which recalls the Old Masters-we are reminded of images by the French Impressionists and Pointillists. Employing the special alchemy of the medium, as magical today as it has always been, he breathes new life into his archive and emerges in this combination of two worlds as a present-day romantic avant-garde artist. His hymns to life and the elemental power of water are a silent protest against the gradual disappearance of nature from our thoughts and our daily lives.
In his introductory essay, Alexander Piihringer, editor of the Austrian art magazine Frame, considers Esser's tableaux in the context of the classic grand tour and scientific expeditions of the 18th and 19th centuries."