Transition
September 10 – October 9, 2019
The 3rd  International Industrial Photography Festival China Liaoning
Beizhen, Jinzhou, Liaoning, Peoples Republic of China

Participating artists: Herbert Boettcher (Germany), Sara Jane Boyers (USA), Michal Cala (Poland), Max de Esteban (Spain), Danica O. Kus (Slovenia), Neo Ntsoma (South Africa), Victoria Piersig (Canada), Daniel Schumann (Germany), Joachim Hildebrand (Germany), (Brad Temkin (USA)

Curator: Thomas Kellner

The industrial Evolution started in the second half of the 18th Century, whereas photography was invented almost 50 years earlier. Both met for a long-joined history. The industrial revolution went from the beginning of machine production to mass production to robot productions. Recently industries became industry 4.0, for a networked production and it looks like the next step will be green sustainable productions for a better future of our planet ruled by a climate revolution, accompanied by artificial Intelligence in many areas of our lifes.

Coalmining, housing, coal heaps and iron production signify the traditional black and white photos by Polish photographer Michal Cala. Those industries of the 70s to 90s doo not exist anymore today. Many places they transformed to Cultural Heritage for example the German coalmines (Danica O. Kus) or glass industries (Daniel Schumann), or the Grossmarkthalle by Joachim Hildebrand, where factories and warehouses changed from production to monuments, a transition to memory.

Industries always transformed materials and resources to industrial, mass-produced products, mostly for a consumer industry. Those resources are still dig up by hand in the images by Neo Ntsoma. Sand has become a highly valuable material for concrete constructions all over the world.

Sara Jane Boyers from the US shows us a postmodern industrial manufacturing production of cars in Detroit, a soon lost way of production as soon as 3D will take over.

Living in a globalized world everything needs transport within a supply chain or to final clients. Victoria Piersig travels with those vessels that transport wheat, ore cement and titanium and gives us an insight in this hidden life.  Herbert Boettcher also travels with some of the largest container ships in the world. He has given this transition of place beautiful timeless images of transport in his series of sea motion.

Brad Temkin works on the transformation of storm and waste water into water for agricultural or industrial usage or even our own consumption. He confronts us with slightly dark, warning images to reflect on the state of water He reminds us in his overwhelming beautiful almost abstract images to think of our basic element of life.

“[…] [The temporary fragments tell us about the process of seeing], they are, in a uniquely photographic way, an instruction and an interpretation of a place, and a marker of the artist’s presence there.” Nordström, Alison Dancing Walls Art Galerie Siegen, John Cleary Gallery Houston, K4 galerie Werner Deller, Saarbrücken, Galerie Maurer, München, Schneider Gallery Chicago, in focus Galerie Burkard Arnold, Köln, 2007, Vorländer Siegen, Houston, Saarbrücken,München, Chicago, Köln page 3

Thank you to the organizers of the the Third Term International Photography Festival Liaoning in Beizhen and Mr. Zhang Guotian for inviting me to curate this exhibition. And very special thank you to the photographers for working on this with me again.