Chris Kremberg at Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin
Matthias Harder
Movement is at the core of Chris Kremberg’s photographic analyses, which seem to be visual scans for traces of information that ultimately cause bodies to disintegrate. As the exhibition title, "Disappearance," indicates, vanishing takes place in a process of dematerialization; the concrete disintegrates. Some individuals photographed by Chris Kremberg seem to appear out of or disappear into the mist. Their contours consist of only a few outlines, although their presence is palpable. Usually the movements are consciously choreographed. The individual shown eludes us through a reduction of color and a transformation of individuality, the unmistakable nature of gesture and mimic. Bodies become beings devoid of time or place. Some of Kremberg’s titles refer to the intended meaning of the photographic material; others have no title and remain open to interpretation. The fleeting figures are placed in a neutral, decontextualized space in an isolated vertical axis, or they are fragmented. "Pictograms of the body"–a phrase laden with references–is what she calls her series of works.
Blurred movement has been a reoccurring theme in the history of photography. Initially, pioneer photographers tried to avoid it, and then in the early 20th Century it was discovered by avant-garde photographers as stylistic medium. Chris Kremberg´s work has a unique, transitory lightness that contrasts the clear, matter-of-fact imagery prevalent among the members of the Becher School. This airiness is grounded in reality but also conveys an emotionally charged ambiguity within space (i.e. the space of the image). The swift movements of dance are frozen, and the photographic images seem to be able to condense a sequence of movements into a single snapshot. The blurriness of the static image indicates motion and allows the full movement to play out in our heads. However, even an extended look the photograph does not really enable us to focus in and differentiate between what parts of the image are distant or close-up–making the photographs both real and abstract at the same time. It is as if we are observing the moment of transition from one aggregate state to another.
According to Kremberg, the radical performance artist Stelarc is the artistic source of her visual vocabulary, particularly in terms of his efforts to push beyond the boundaries of the body and to overcome the opposition of the internal and external. Corporeal disintegration to the point of outline and remnant contour demonstrates a similar intension in Kremberg´s photographic work and videos. At the same time, this is the delicate and poetic imagery of a daydream that resembles remnants of individual appearances and transformative processes.
A solitary arm stretched up into a horizontal image in Robert Mapplethorpe’s unusual self-portrait has become the ultimate photographic expression of fragmentation. In contrast, Kremberg´s arm picture is in color and seems to be in motion on an empty stage cleared of all unnecessary props.
In her series "Pictograms of the body"–which seems to bear the signs of complex developments heading towards a radical reduction of content–chance seems to play a major role. Kremberg combines aspects of photography and painting in an individual technique; she layers different materials, in order to later combine, modify, or destroy them through chemical reactions and light-sensitive emulsion.
This multi-faceted artist trained in a variety of fields–including painting and photography along with costume and set design in Halle and Berlin–which formed the basis for this complex "coming and going" in her most recent photographic works.
