Chromogenic print
48 × 60 cm

Created at the Silzer See, a lake in Rhineland-Palatinate on the southern reaches of the wine route, the photograph Seestück II develops a theatrical, complex narrative that seems simultaneously absurd and strangely familiar. Again and again, Thomas Brenner plays with perception and the often unconscious associations that various media summon up in us. With photography, the assumption is doubtlessly that what is being shown is also genuine or real. But how is this supposed reality to be understood? And to what status can it lay claim in an era of photo-editing programs?

If pictures tell stories, then the viewer also always tells himself his own personal story, emphasizes certain colours and motifs before his inner eye and connects them with what concerns and moves him at the moment.

(Denise Essig, revised version)

† This artwork belongs to the IKOB collection, but was destroyed in the regional floods of July 2021.