| Description: | Exploring his position as a self-conscious 'outsider 'to Liverpool, Vienna-based artist Werner Kaligofsky used this as the starting point for his work. Prospective artists for International 04 were invited to the city to conduct preliminary research. Fascinated by his 'guest' status, Kaligofsky has produced a set of photographic images that document his journeys around the city and the surrounding areas, led by two guides. His work calls attention to the role of personal and subjective histories in shaping the ways in which individuals see, understand and talk about the world around us.
Personal and public identity is a central issue in Kaligofsky's work. Recently, at the Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, Tyrol, he juxtaposed photographs and live film footage of streets and squares in Innsbruck with text detailing the biographies of the opponents and victims of National Socialism after whom the streets are named. For his Liverpool piece, Kaligofsky asked to be led by a person who had lived in the city in the past, moved away and then returned, and a person who had recently moved here. He sought difference in ethnicity, gender, profession, age and class-symbols of identity that can easily be reduced to stereotypes. The first guide ('departed returned'), Brian Hatton, came from a working-class family in Widnes and is an art historian living in London who returns to Liverpool to teach. The second guide ('newly arrived'), Kwan May Ling, was born in Hong Kong, and is an art student who also runs her family home in Birkenhead. The guides' perspectives on the city focused upon very different themes: Hatton showed Kaligofsky historic buildings and critiqued town planning decisions, while May Ling reflected on places with atmosphere, places that inspire her artwork or remind her of 'home', and places where she shops for food.
Within this process, Kaligofsky insists that although he uses the methods of documentary photography, his work does not attempt to rationalise objectively the subjective experience presented to him by his guides. In clarifying his position he turns to Lacanian ideas, stating that 'an image is like a screen between the gaze and the subject of representation, and vice versa'. While he has tried to record the views of his guides as accurately as possible, his photographs are ultimately interpretative. They are his way of making sense of the information that was
presented to him in Liverpool. A tension is established, then, between the subjectivity of the guides and the guest and the photographic objects themselves.
Laura Britton [MORE][LESS]Exploring his position as a self-conscious 'outsider 'to Liverpool, Vienna-based artist Werner Kaligofsky used this as the starting point for his work. Prospective artists for International 04 were invited to the city to conduct preliminary research. Fascinated by his 'guest' status, Kaligofsky has produced a set of photographic images that document his journeys around the city and the surrounding areas, led by two guides. His work calls attention to the role of personal and subjective histories in shaping the ways in which individuals see, understand and talk about the world around us.
Personal and public identity is a central issue in Kaligofsky's work. Recently, at the Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, Tyrol, he juxtaposed photographs and live film footage of streets and squares in Innsbruck with text detailing the biographies of the opponents and victims of National Socialism after whom the streets are named. For his Liverpool piece, Kaligofsky asked to be led by a person who had lived in the city in the past, moved away and then returned, and a person who had recently moved here. He sought difference in ethnicity, gender, profession, age and class-symbols of identity that can easily be reduced to stereotypes. The first guide ('departed returned'), Brian Hatton, came from a working-class family in Widnes and is an art historian living in London who returns to Liverpool to teach. The second guide ('newly arrived'), Kwan May Ling, was born in Hong Kong, and is an art student who also runs her family home in Birkenhead. The guides' perspectives on the city focused upon very different themes: Hatton showed Kaligofsky historic buildings and critiqued town planning decisions, while May Ling reflected on places with atmosphere, places that inspire her artwork or remind her of 'home', and places where she shops for food.
Within this process, Kaligofsky insists that although he uses the methods of documentary photography, his work does not attempt to rationalise objectively the subjective experience presented to him by his guides. In clarifying his position he turns to Lacanian ideas, stating that 'an image is like a screen between the gaze and the subject of representation, and vice versa'. While he has tried to record the views of his guides as accurately as possible, his photographs are ultimately interpretative. They are his way of making sense of the information that was
presented to him in Liverpool. A tension is established, then, between the subjectivity of the guides and the guest and the photographic objects themselves.
Laura Britton |
