PARIS.- Galerie Richard opened the fourth solo exhibition of Olaf Rauh, entitled Multiscan, from the 24th November 2012 to the 12th January 2013 in Paris.

Olaf Rauh, born in Leipzig in 1968, has quickly distinguished himself from the German photographers of the previous generation, because he does not use photography as an objective medium but rather to express an imaginary world in a real environment.

In the new series Multiscan, we are witnesses of urban landscapes, habitats or community plazas which shine by their absence of residents, pedestrians and users. Thanks to electronic methods which differ from the previous series, Olaf Rauh introduces polychrome masses, some biomorphic, as the essence of apparent life. Other masses resembling smoke place the viewers in a dream mood. He transforms the space together with its perception. Effectively, the artist abolishes the border between reality and the imaginary, and plays on the likeness by using mirror effects.

Nevertheless, Olaf Rauh is rooted in the reality of photos which are not deformed in their frames or in their proportions. The artist demonstrates accurate framing, confronting vertical and horizontal lines softened by sumptuous curves. On the other hand, the treatment of light and color could evoke the hyper-realist painting of John Baeder, with his infinite palette of sometimes sour tones. The artist then proceeds to multiple interventions, he scans and scans again just as the painter would add a layer. Attention is paid to the decomposition of the spectrum of light while emphasizing the architectural dominance of the place. Nature tries to interfere but, although more present than man, fights to exist. It is sometimes reduced to a reflection, sometimes cut sharp, or buried in a substrate which should be considered archeology.

Olaf Rauh has accustomed us to speed, traffic, the almost noisy competition of today's world. Today places us into silence that is nothing like an oblivion. By choosing usual places of passage, paradoxically "empty", does the photographer present a metaphor for time? In the series ‘Multiscan’, Olaf Rauh presents the cleansing of the common area.