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ELIAS WESSEL

[NEW YORK]

Aesthetics of Conflict

The synthesis of digital, painting and photography as visual response to the tension between fascination, wonder and anxiety generated by the technological development and its impact on the societal and political appearance of our time.

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In the midst of social change and political turbulence around the world in the 1960s and 1970s, artists brought their cameras onto the streets, finding photography to be an immediate and accessible means of responding to their surroundings. Today, our surroundings are increasingly abstract, and thus, I am developing photographic concepts that transform social themes into abstract images strongly reminiscent of painting. In the large-scale 2017 project “Die Summe meiner Daten” [The Sum of My Data], I find both aesthetically accessible and revealing images that document the simultaneity of digitization, surveillance and identity. Photographs I consider – without depicting the individual – to be abstract portraits in a digital era. Over the past years I steadily expand my oevre within a broader context of digitization. That includes series of works such as “Images Through an Algorithmic Lens – Zur Visualisierung der Wirklichkeit“ [Visualizing Reality] (2018-19) and “Schöne Neue Welt“ [Brave New World] (2019-20). At the beginning of the 2020s, I am committed to my research on the crisis of the information age and the colossus Facebook, that culminates in my eleven image series “It’s Complicated!“. Through the connection between painterly imagery held in the photograph, I exploit the overlaps – and differences – not only between the visual natures of the mediums, but their natures as disciplinary practices, in particular. What are the sources that lead to these abstract images that are created within the limits of the medium of photography and what is the role of the photographic concept involved in creating paintings without paint, or photographs that eschew the photographic apparatus? How can the inherent interdependences between the digital, painting and photography achieve forms of synthesis and underpin the key idea of my artistic practice – to contribute to the historical dialogue between photography and painting and to inspire reflection and debate on contemporary societal and political challenges?

Elias Wessel is committed to developing photographic concepts and procedures which culminate in abstract images that reflect contemporary discourses within society. The works function as both an important contribution to the issues of social and political development and the historical conversation between photography and painting. 

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ELIAS WESSEL

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Schöne neue Welt, No. 1 (2019-20)

Colour Photograph

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