Exhibitions

Self-portraits with the Camera Obscura

Exhibition in the context of the 5th European Month of Photography

The receipt of a scholarship can be a decisive moment in an artists's career: Ono Ludwig received a bursary for the Werkakademie Leipzig, participating in the Master Class for Photography under the supervision of Dr. Eva Mahn. Part of the foundational program was to build a Camera Obscura, which inspired the artist to develop a series of self portraits.

The results are playful, yet very intimate and sometimes disturbing self portraits. The tension between enperformance, self experiment and almost self dissection produces a series of works that surprise and reveal the unexpected. The long exposure time of the Camera Obscura allow a playful and expressive freedom, which Ono Ludwig uses to mirror his psychological conditions.

These types of work seem to require a sense and pleasure of performing the self. This differs from artist to artist. For some it is a rather difficult task, yet one that has to be done particularly when the work aims to go beyond white teeth and happy smiles, but instead demands to explore the inner landscapes and shadowy grounds of the human soul in order to make these transparent to the viewer. The focus on past and present, the historical and social components form an emotional framework that gives the work a fragile and vulnerable outlook, which allows the viewer to be touched in return.

In some of the photographs the effect of self performance goes so far it seems that Ono Ludwig demands to erase any gender differences or traces. These images have a relieving humorous and at times grotesque quality.

The tension inherent in all of the works is created by the apparent and inherent dualistic tension within the individual: the clash between outer and inner, familiar and hidden aspects, reality and fiction, voyeurism and exhibitionism.

It leaves us, the viewers, no chance but to leave everything concerning our own identity that we always believed to be set in stone behind and go on a journey of self discovery and search of identity.

Text: Franz Werner