Ingar Krauss

After a number of catalogues, »39 Pictures« is now the second monograph on Ingar Krauss (*1965, Berlin). His first book, »Portraits« (2005), featuring portraits of children and teenagers, revealed his independent position on today’s fine arts photography scene. In »39 Pictures« Ingar Krauss presents thirty-nine still lifes, whose contents are derived from the rural environment surrounding his photography studio in Oderbruch. Vegetables, fruit, grain, flowers, and animals are photographed in analogue technique under natural light in self-constructed, stage-like boxes. They’ve been developed in his own darkroom, and finally, enlarged by hand and glazed in oil paint. His pictures look surreal, sometimes gloomy, always timeless; they obey no trend and cannot be attributed to any school. His inspiration comes from his immediate experience of landscape, farming, the seasons of the year, and atmospheres, although these new pictures are more akin to portraits than still lifes. Hartmann Books worked closely with Krauss and the publisher Suzy Shammah on the book’s design. Binding and paper are carefully chosen to present the photographs in a congenial book form. Ulf Erdmann Ziegler’s essay in both German and English (»He Who Lives Still life, Lifes Lives Inside«) is more than just the usual sort of text that accompanies today’s photography books. His essay reenacts the way that one looks at the photographs; it’s an independent and very readable literary commentary on the visual tasks of the still life, its history, and its contents.