Thomas Wrede

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photographs

"Magic Worlds - Magic Feelings"

February 27 - April 3, 1999

Cristinerose Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Magic Worlds - Magic Feelings, landscape color photographs and B&W portraits of roller coaster riders in fun and leisure parks by German photographer Thomas Wrede.

In the artificial worlds of fun and leisure parks one can admire the attractions of landscape and architecture of the whole world within just a few hours. Landscapes, which seem to be taken from American postcards invite people in Germany to breathtaking rides on roller coasters to entirely new worlds. The Statue of Liberty lies underneath the European Alps, North American stone deserts spread over West Germany. Distant travel are not necessary in order to experience the highlights of the world and the great adventures.

The melancholy of Thomas Wrede's photographs lies in the accessories of programmed fun appearing sober and without illusion. His landscapes do not seem still, but mute, not filled with longing, but naked. One is aware of that which one does not see.

Time and space seem to vanish. The usual cliches of exotic countries and idyllic landscapes manifest themselves once more in a perfect staging. During the extreme noserides of roller coasters, the expensively plastic idyll turns into the simple background for the ultimate shock. The journey does no longer lead the viewer back into the outside world but becomes an adrenaline trip to your physical and psychological limits.

In Wrede's color photographs, Magic Worlds, an artificial landscape appears in cold light without shadows and feelings, deserted and sterile. A clear and distant look makes the limits between artificiality and naturalness disappear. The landscapes, filled with detail and, at the same time, seemingly empty, form a contrast to the energetic atmosphere of mass spectacles with their constant loud music and activities, their artificial sounds of nature and the screaming of the roller coaster riders.

The faces of the roller coaster riders are caught in the small, intimate black and white photographs in the series Magic Feelings. In the terrific spectacle of simultaneous emotional outbursts, the action shots testify highly individual facial expressions ranging from pleasure or joy to fear and panic. This subjective expression of existential feelings leads, at the same time, to gestures of universal validity.

In his photographs, Thomas Wrede leads the beholder to an unexpected and impressive analysis of the ruptures and troubles of contemporary reality. In his work, neither the medium nor a formal principle stand in the foreground, but experiences of longing, fears and hidden violence are pre-dominant. Thus, Wrede develops a modern possibility of narration which appears to be trivial.

Thomas Wrede lives and works in Munster, Germany. He has been the recipient of several German photography awards.