Thomas Nitz’s solo exhibition presents a unique view of the present, simultaneity and the interface between them. As a renowned photographer, Nitz focuses on the rudimentary without subscribing to a particular philosophy. Rather, he reflects the brutality of time and gives his works a unique feel, abstraction and aesthetic through the use of analog photography.
The uniqueness of Nitz’s approach can be seen in the way he develops negatives using the contact method with liquid photo emulsion on self-coated cardboard. In this way, he deliberately blurs the clear boundaries between painting and photography. Nitz chooses watercolor cardboard, which he carefully primes with paint and prepares with a light-sensitive emulsion. Manual processing forms the basis of his artworks, as each cardboard is individual and has an unpredictable influence on the result. Each photograph cannot be reproduced at will, and each print differs from the others in a fascinating way.
Various series, including ‘Crossover’, ‘Lost’, ‘Brut’ and ‘Screenshot’ are presented in the exhibition ‘inzwischen’. The series offer a unique insight into Nitz’s artistic work.
In his ‘Crossover’ series, the Berlin-based photographer takes an innovative approach. He always begins the shoots with a drawing. The models are painted onto a large canvas using rough materials such as barbecue charcoal. Nitz then places the model in front of the drawing and takes a long exposure. The result is visible just minutes after the picture is taken. The people depicted merge with the drawing and their blurred shadows reveal their presence in an unusual way. Nitz thus creates not just photographs, but unique works of art that break down the traditional framework between painting and photography.
The special thing about this is that the drawings made beforehand are not kept, but are destroyed and painted over after each session. All that remains is a negative, which reappears photographically as ‘Lost’. In the ‘Lost’ series, the artist consciously addresses the reversal of conventional values. He creates unique pieces in an era of endless reproduction and allows preliminary sketches to survive only in the resulting photograph. The rough sketches, almost manic in appearance, convey intoxication, eroticism and anger – a wealth of emotions that remain only as a memory in the image after the sketches have been destroyed.
The ‘Brut’ series, on the other hand, explores the understanding of aesthetics and deliberately goes beyond this. In a departure from conventional food photography, Nitz focuses on the pure, raw and rough. Using large-format black and white technology and targeted photography from above, he crosses the boundary from the appetizing to the unappetizing. This form of expression takes food photography into an area beyond the pleasing, where the imagination wants to transcend the concept of disgust.
The exhibition closes with ‘screenshots’ of war footage. No further comment.
“Thomas Nitz – Inzwischen” invites us to view the complexity of time through the lens of the photographer and to come to terms with the simultaneous existence of different realities.