Beate Gtschow: LS / S

(Hardback)

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"Beate Gtschow: LS/S," the first monograph on this exceptional artist, features two bodies of work that compel the viewer to think about humankind's celebration of nature and our ceaseless desire to control it. In these luscious, digitally produced photographs, each detail--down to the most subtle nuance of palette and light--is carefully controlled, culled from an archive of images taken specifically for use in these seamless collages. Every blade of grass, pebble and nonchalant passerby has been painstakingly orchestrated by the artist, who draws on the work and traditions of Romantic-era painters like Constable and Turner, as well as photo legends like Lewis Baltz and Bernd and Hilla Becher. In this volume, the landscape series, "LS," are constructed to convey the "perfect" pastoral scene. In stark contrast, the cityscape series, "S," present an eerily familiar vision of a nonexistent, but clearly dystopian form of architecture. Although the two series present seemingly tranquil settings that at first appear as binary opposites, in fact, they are equally fraught with issues of control, inauthenticity and the pursuit of perfection.

Author Bio

Beate Gtschow studied at the School of Fine Arts, Oslo, and the School of Fine Arts, Hamburg. She has appeared in numerous shows throughout Europe and U.S. solo shows at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago and Danziger Projects, New York. Awards include the 2006 Ars Viva Prize, an Otto-Dix-Prize of New Media, and a Villa Aurora fellowship. She lives in Berlin and is represented by Danziger Projects, New York; Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich; and Produzentengalerie, Hamburg.