"... The works of the photo artist Horst Jösch (born 1966) are suggestive pictures removed from reality standing beyond real time and place, based on impressions of nature, landscape and architecture. These works taken with an analog view camera belong to subjective staged photo art. By varying depth of field and superimposing different space and image layers the artist raises perception of nature and landscape into the surreal and visionary. Nature seems close and far, real and unreal at the same time. ..."  

 

Extract from 'Landscape-Mental-Pictures' from Dr. Nicola Carola Heuwinkel                        text pdf

 

 

 

 

 

"...the art of photographer Horst Jösch shifts the borders of perception beyond the purely visible. There are two distinctive traits to his modus operandi: first, he photographs an object so as to uncover its character via interplay between juxtaposed sharpness and blurriness. As landscape and architectural photographer, Jösch exploits this uncertainty principle as stylistic pictorial medium—away from realism and a documentary gaze, towards a more metaphorical, subjective conception of contemporary photography. Second, he elaborates an object so as to illustrate an idea previously nurtured in the photographer’s mind, requiring his pictorial works to obey a cognitive drive and the visualization of conceptual thought. And yet these two approaches provide us with symptomatic insights into the world of his conceptions, fears, dreams and wishes. The striking quality of his photographs lies, therefore, in their ability to document our consciousness facing the contestability of all appearances..."

 

Dr. Susanne Höper-Kuhn

 

 

 

 

 



• La Serena

• Flower Power

Close to Green

• Diorama

 

 

 

La Serena (landscape)

‚La Serena' first of all it is a city in Chile, mother country of Horst Jösch.

‚La Serena' is Spanish and means serenity, calmness and composure.

With 'La Serena' Horst Jösch associates places of silence. These are places where he can find his inner tranquility, discovers sensuality and can let wander his mind far from omnipresent hustle and fast paced life. Here he can emerge into another world, which is determined by the processes and circulations of nature. Here each creature, each plant has its right to exist independent of potential market value and utility.

 

‚La Serena' is also the title of a long term project of Jösch, in which he looks into his special affinity to nature, its processes, that, what it gives and, what it takes with the loss of it from mankind.

 

‚La Serena' describes specific moods and impressions which refer to nature. In using selective blurriness in his pictures, Jösch deconstructs established viewing patterns and ways of thinking. Through reduction of content in the sense of an abstraction a mood is communicated and evoked at the beholder. A mood in which the landscape is transformed in to an undetermined, fey scenery. Thereby the object is detached from its space-time continuum, at the same time Jösch's attitude and state of mind respectively is reflected.         pictures

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Flower Power (polagram)

’Flower Power’ is the title of a series of photograms, by which Horst Jösch is working in the genre of cameraless photography.
Starting point is the objective examination of nature; the collection, the identification and the arrangement of parts of plants. From this initial point of a scientific and technical approach, a picture is created which, endowed with a poetic structure of narration, is in an obvious opposition to the original method of production. While portraying of a plant in sciences has a mere documentary character attached to it, the scientist exclusively intends to archive and compare, the works of Horst Jösch gleam far beyond this aspect.

 The work ’Flower Power’ is less of a systematical documentation than rather a sensual approach towards an aura surrounding the object. The removal from the plant’s original context, the concentration on the form and the reduction in terms of color increase the level of abstraction of these works. The bodies seem to dissolve on their medium, the paper, the outlines blur; what remains, is a fleeting picture, an appearance. The reduction of volumes into an unreal, almost mystical depiction evokes an adjustment between saved referential images of one's subconscious and the resulting picture both for the beholder and during the very act of becoming a picture for the photographer himself. The distinct methodology is opposed to the idealizing and poetic attitude of the artist.

Horst Jösch has chosen the title implying a connection to the political movement of the 60’s, a time, where people followed ideals and were ready to fight for them. In times where the term self-reflection is omnipresent, it is thus desirable for the artist to turn towards nature and to remind oneself of its existential meaning for humanity, to stand up for it – for ’Flower Power’.

N. Brauhauser        pictures

                                                                                  

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Close to Green
"...In his new series 'Close to Green', Jösch goes a step further. He combines objects from outside photography, wild plants in this case, with photography, in projecting slides on these plants and photographing the set. Catalyst for this idea was to visually bring civilized urban space together with the area of nature, thus virtually have it reconquered by nature. Although he doesn't work with selective blurriness anymore, blurriness is created due to the multiple layering, depending on what the camera is being focused, either the projection screen or the plants. Again a spatial layering is originated. It becomes even more complicated, when space outside the picture is transported into the photograph via reflections, so that the outmost turns into the innermost. A Collage is formed from different layers and different realities: 1.) The reality of the urban space as counterpart, 2.) of the urban space outside the picture detail, which is being projected into the picture, 3.) of the plants from the space of the projection. What seems so complicated is complicated, or to use another word: Complex. As complex and multilayered as the world, which Jösch has placed in front of the lens. ..."
 
Sabine Müller        pictures
 
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Diorama

These images are part and resulted of the project 'Notional Football'. In my project I placed an antipole to the commerce in soccer by hauling out the event from the arena by means of an Tipp-Kick game and making it figuratively accessible for everybody, every age and every class. Shifting the focus evokes a miniaturization, which reinforces the contrast to commerce and football business.
I used the term ’diorama’ on purpose. The pictures aren’t true dioramas, however they have the appearance of one. Im my photographs the backdrops are real and the kickers form sort of a setting and complement the coulisse. I quasi don’t just play with the characters but also with the terms. pictures