Snow lies on the surface of the water, which is covered in thin ice. The reeds remain dry in the cold, the branches protrude bare into the picture. Looking at the picture, you would never guess that the winter scene is not a landscape painting, but a photograph. In the nine pictures in his “landscape with gun and chandelier” series, Heiko Huber once again blurs the boundaries between photography and painting, playing not only with the viewer’s viewing habits but also with the tradition of depicting nature.
Heiko Huber “paints” his landscapes with his camera. The works are dreamy and characterized by a tangible calm. Sometimes they are rich in detail, sometimes rather two-dimensional. Sometimes they are intensely colorful, sometimes the reduced colors have an even stronger effect. With the play of light and the merging of color, it is no coincidence that the pictures are reminiscent of works by the English Romantic William Turner.
It was not until the 17th century did landscape painting develop into an independent genre in the Netherlands. For the ancient Egyptians, landscape was formulaic; in the Middle Ages, the painted landscape served as an indication of place or symbol, it was the setting for biblical or ancient scenes. Sometimes it was an idealized composition of an Arcadian landscape, sometimes a study of nature or the subject of topographically accurate veduta painting. For Romantics such as Caspar David Friedrich, nature was an expression of divine revelation and a symbol of religiosity. William Turner flooded his paintings with light and, as a forerunner of the Impressionists, captured the perception of the landscape in the moment for the first time. In contrast to the heroic landscapes of the 17th and 18th century, in which the heroes of antiquity were placed under dramatic skies, the Impressionists renounced any symbolism. In plein-air painting, they focused on light and weather phenomena and depicted the landscape as a shot of a fleeting moment. In Post-Impressionism, painters then focused on their own feelings and described the world around them through abstract interrelationships of form, color and their own feelings.
The photographer uses a very specific technique to approach landscape painting. By superimposing 30 to 50 individual photos, each of which depicts reality, new landscapes that do not exist in reality are created in the superimposition. The photographer thus moves through the various styles of landscape painting, from tonalism to impressionism to pointillism, constantly exploring the fringes of photography and the limits of what is photographically possible. The fact that Heiko Huber takes a playful approach to the tradition of landscape painting is made clear by the name of the series of works. The title “landscape with gun and chandelier” is based on common designations for pictures in landscape painting. The fact that none of the objects mentioned can be seen illustrates the wink with which the photographer approaches the genre, which is characterized by centuries of exaggeration and seriousness.
Using a method of direct representation, the photographer makes the non-existent visible and creates a new, subjective reality. Instead of trying to capture reality, Heiko Huber detaches his images from the real context and focuses on the impression. Independent of space and time, he uses his camera to create dreamy landscapes, snapshot studies of an indefinite period of time that rewrite the rules of photography.