Christian Mader

The works of the Stuttgart-based photographer reveal the inscrutability of a society that remains largely foreign to us as Europeans. We lack a clear connection between the visible and the imaginary worlds – the missing link. The Japanese people in the photographs appear as though they have been inserted into a world that they endure more than they shape. Many Eastern Asians live their lives conscious of the fact that there is ultimately no such thing as free will as this is defined in the West, since, in real life, goal-orientated action has no influence on the eternally imponderable cosmos as a whole. Mader’s works are by no means reportage, whereby his images are not staged. He neither composes nor adorns. Although the photographs depict real situations from everyday life, we do not trust their prosaicness. We are incapable of retelling the narratives that lie within these situations, since our Western concepts and routines of intuitive cognition and interpretation do not apply in this Eastern country. Precisely herein lies the fascination of Mader’s photographs.