Wandeln

Wandeln is an ongoing series begun in 2004, consisting currently of 60 colour photographs taken in various parts of the western hemisphere. Within Wandeln, the images constitute an uneven rhythm of smaller series punctuated by single images; the order does not correspond with the itinerary of the artist or with any other clear categorisation. The disparate collection is bound together by a certain feeling, one that might be described as silence or, more accurately, as a form of disengagement. Relations between the images and the locations they depict evoke the relation between dream and life awake. Although the photographs are clear and readable depictions of places, as images they seem to disengage from the physical spaces and gain a completely different meaning. This is the level at which the images connect with each other, constituting small stories within the larger story about nature as a displaced and estranged object, about transgressing space through imagination or association. There is a certain friction in the work, between the formal scheme of composition and the lack of direction in both the single images and the constellations they are put into. There is an almost-ness hovering over the photographs, as they are not allowed to crystallize in any form of meaning or decisiveness, neither do they adhere to any deductive conceptual scheme. In that way, they seem to be uneasily balancing between being photographs of places, landscape pictures and images resembling those of memory or imagination. The silence of Anne Lass’s photographs is only an appearance; really they precipitate a rather noisy and conflict ridden investment on the part of the viewer.