NEW YORK.- For over a decade, Milan-based photographer and filmmaker Armin Linke has built an archive of images about human activity and the most varied natural and man-made landscapes. This archive consists of a series of atlases that simultaneously capture intimate local situations and radical large-scale transformations the world over. His work is both political and poetic: political in his constant reference to social and ideological constructions of space, and poetic in his use of performance, the practice of everyday life, and his invocation of the utopian imagination. Linke documents scenes where the boundary between fiction and non-fiction blurs or becomes invisible.
An uneven exchange of power, curated by Anselm Franke, presents a selection of over 200 images from Linke’s archive, shown in large format books organized in categories that correspond to the organization of the archive, such as landscape architecture, performance, interior, and fashion, among others. The images often redefine the categories: in landscape architecture we find Soviet-style abandoned discotheque, Samarcand, Uzbekistan, 2001; in performance, The Synagogue, Church of All Nations, TV show, Lagos, Nigeria, 2000; and in interior, Star City ZPK, pressurized trousers, Moscow, Russia, 1998. The photos introduce a different understanding of the present by subverting the prevalent visual regimes produced by the media, tourism, the military and other special interest groups. Similarly, in the two videos included in the exhibition, Baghdad, 24.04.2002, 2002, and Gaza City, Road Block at Netsareim Settlement Beach Road, 2003, Linke depicts the unexpected banality of everyday activities in unstable political environments.
Linke’s archive is also viewable online, through the Book on Demand project, first presented at Utopia Station, at http://www.arminlinke.com. In addition to the categories above, the archive is searchable by key words and nearly 400 different ’places’.
The recent publication: Armin Linke: Transient, edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Stefano Boeri, (Skira, 2003) is also available at the gallery.
Armin Linke (1966) lives in Milan. Selected solo exhibitions include: Galerie Klosterfelde, Berlin (2003); Muro temporaneo, Studio Massimo De Carlo, Milano (2001) and Instant Book, Deitch Projects, New York (1996). Selected group exhibitions include: .Scapes, Haus der Kunst, Merano (2004); Utopia Station, Venice Biennale, 50th International Art Exhibition (2003); Territories, KW Berlin (2003); 25th Bienal di Sao Paulo, (2002); Venice Biennale, 7th International Architecture Exhibition (2000); Voila, Le monde dans la tete, Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2000); and Cities on the Move (1998-1999).
Anselm Franke is an independent curator based in Berlin. The exhibition Territories, curated by Franke with Eyal Weizman, Rafi Segal and Stefano Boieri, originally presented at KW Berlin, will open this month at the Malmo Konsthall, Sweden.
