I absolutely loved Bianca Brunner’s dark, beautiful portrait that was in the reGeneration exhibition and book. Rather recently, I came across some images of hers that are a bit of a departure from her earlier work, but perhaps conceptually connected - her projects, Wood and Star.

Untitled 2, 2007 (from “Wood”)
© Bianca Brunner

Untitled 1, 2007 (from “Star”)
© Bianca Brunner

For an explanation and interpretation of the work, I’ll pull from a piece written by Tan Wälchli (as seen on the Grusenmeyer Art Gallery website):

Bianca Brunner challenges the notion of photography as a ‘realistic’ media mimetically picturing the world. Although she takes actual pictures, the viewer is confronted with an imaginary scenario, which the artist constructs herself before she photographs it. She builds objects out of wood, which she sets in scene either in her studio or in studio-like outdoor environments.

The objects have the quality of models, insofar as they are too abstract to be realistic, lacking any details. It appears that they were not built to be used, but rather to be depicted. The abstraction might even go as far as to cause estrangement. It is not evident what the objects represent; they seem to be rather figures of thought than actual things. The uncertainty is aggravated as the angle of the camera allows us to see only a minor part of the scenario, and we might even begin to speculate about what lies ‘behind’ the scene. What does the background of the picture hide?

Untitled 3, 2007 (from “Wood”)
© Bianca Brunner

Untitled 3, 2007 (from “Star”)
© Bianca Brunner

All this highlights the imaginary character of Brunner’s pictures – so much that imagination itself becomes one of their major topics. They deal with the question of what an image is by asking what it needs to construct it. Indeed, the repetitive act of construction (and implied deconstruction) asserts itself as the series progresses. More particularly, Wood (2007) emphasises the materiality of the picture. It seems as if the branches in the background (which remain unchanged trough out the series) were ‘transformed’ into a new wooden object with every picture. Star (2008) explores the role played by light in the constitution of an image. The silver foil curtain in the background reflects the strong flashing light, which is then reflected a second time on the wooden objects in the foreground, slightly delineating their forms within the numerous flickering stars.

Given this occupation with the topic of the image, it is not astonishing, that the constructed wooden objects sometimes come close to ‘scenes’ in a literal sense. We might make out a stage, a stand for an audience a. o. Yet these are not the only references the pictures play with. As for Star, we might remember the importance philosophy of art has attached to the concept of ‘reflection’ (from Hegel to Lacan, a. o.), or we might be aware that the silver foil curtain was an important design item in Warhol’s factory. And with Wood, Heidegger’s understanding of the work of art as a ‘clearing’ [Lichtung] comes to mind – as well as his way of thinking ‘off the beaten track’ [auf dem Holzweg, which literally means ‘on a track in the wood’]. Whatever weight the viewer might put on such references, they indicate that Brunner’s pictures, which on a first glance might appear formal and strict, at a closer look also have a playful, even ironic side.

Untitled 4, 2007 (from “Wood”)
© Bianca Brunner

Untitled 4, 2007 (from “Star”)
© Bianca Brunner

See the rest of the images from Wood and Star here.

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