Title: Peter Franck: New stories from the past
Date: 14th - 29th Nov 2019
Artists: Peter Franck
Arthill Gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in London by German
photographer Peter Franck. The exhibition, titled Peter Franck: New stories from the past, starts by presenting his colourful series The Kodak Moment and gradually introduces a darker world created by the artist that emerges from the series Lost Back to the Future and Some Thing Never Change.
Peter Franck’s work always begins from a research in digital archives. He is very interested
in the link between past and present, that also symbolizes the link between analogue
photographs that have been digitalized and used, like in his case, to create digital
photographic collages. In the series The Kodak Moment he intends to investigate the theme
of violation of privacy and his attempt to give privacy back to the portrayed subjects. The
images show moments of everyday life, they give access to private situations, they give
insights into families’ lives and environments. Peter Franck covered or even deleted part of
bodies, cars and houses are decontextualized and inserted in new environments. Nothing is
recognisable anymore.
In the series Lost Back to the Future, the artist wants to explore what remains about cities,
what persists. We live in an era where architectural and cultural heritage are very
important. We look at buildings with proud, we admire them and celebrate them. Starting
from real images, Peter Franck is projecting us to a reality that does not exist: old cars are
floating in the air and their noises belong to the past, cities are empty and the darkness is
predominant.
The exhibition ends with one photograph from the series titled Some Things Never Change,
where the artist explores the theme of war. In the image there is a strong sense of absence,
men are already passed away and what lasts is just a frozen moment in time. The artist
wants to induce us to think that also the pictures of the current time can be the primary
source for collages of death in the future, suggesting that some things never change.