Luminogram II 1981, 3-4 diptych, Two Pigment Glossy Prints, 27.5 x 19.6 in. each, Ed. of 3
Gradation (Photo paper work XXII 1983,7 ) 1983
Ensemble of seven Gelatin Silver Print on Agfa Brovira 111, 41 x 10 in. each, Unique
Punching Form (theme) photogram on Paper Negative on Gelatin Silver Print,1965 and Variation, 7-11, 1965
Ensemble of Nine Gelatin Silver Baryta paper prints type 111, Unique
Sous Les Etoiles Gallery is pleased to announce, “Intersection of Color,” German photographer Gottfried Jäger’s second exhibition with the gallery, showcasing a selection of his color works from the 1960s to the early 2000s. For the occasion, Sous Les Etoiles Gallery is publishing Intersection of Color the first monograph of Jäger’s color works, bringing together different approaches to photographic color formation, experimented on for sixty years, including essays by Lyle Rexer and Bernd Stiegler and an interview with Gottfried Jäger by Corinne Tapia, director of Sous Les Etoiles Gallery.
Known as one of the greatest figures in German photography, Gottfried Jäger (b. 1937, Burg near Magdeburg) is an exper-imental artist who, over the years, redefined the term “photography”. In breaking the boundaries of what the camera can accomplish, Jäger reexamines the objectivity of the photographic process. In 1968, during the movement of Concrete Art, Jäger developed the concept and theory of Generative Photography. In his words, it consists of “finding a new world inside the camera and trying to bring it out with methodical and analytical methods.”
Jäger’s generative color work derives from the color spectrum and the refraction of white light. Whether analogue or digital, the work is not a representation of color but a reflection of it. In his “color space,” Jäger creates paths, crossing from experi-mentation to programming, from abstraction to concretion, and from analog to computed color photographs. Over the long course of his career, through his use of multiple lenses combined with algorithms and computer programs, Gottfried Jäger has developed a new aesthetic.
During this time, Jäger has explored optics, mechanisms and materials of photography – and in this book, color photography specifically – to produce images that have no referents, no antecedents to their own process, and no umbilical cord to an observed world. In the profoundest sense, they are “unprecedented” – says Lyle Rexer.
In Jäger’s words, “The objective of my work is to induce a generative effect: to constantly provoke an endless generation of new forms and elements in a continuous process of renewal and rebirth. What is intended is not a standstill, but the image of an exchange, its infiltration, and its conversion.” From the iconic Polarizations, the Luminograms and the Multiple Optics series, the show will include some never exhibited pieces, and a selection of silver gelatin prints.
Gottfried Jäger’s work is held in the permanent collections of the George Eastman House, Rochester; the Sprengel Muse-um, Hannover; the Museum Ludwig, Cologne; the Ruppert Collection, Museum Würzburg; the Museum Folkwang, Essen; the Fotomuseum im Münchner Stadtmuseum, Munich; the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and The Centre Georesg Pompidou, Paris, France
