ACHROMATIC HISTORY

2017

For the series ACHROMATIC HISTORY I use antiquarian editions of the US-American Life magazine from the heyday of photojournalism, i.e. from the 1950s to the 1970s. Before exposing selected page spreads to light to bleach the colors I cover certain parts with everyday items such as DVDs or coins. After the fading the covered parts appear as silhouettes in the original print colors, highlighting them against the achromatized backdrop.

In this way ACHROMATIC HISTORY interweaves several layers of time: the first is the time of the photographed event. Since television and the World Wide Web have long replaced magazines as the mainstream medium it is not only the photographs of historical events, but also the illustrated magazines themselves which are a thing of the past. This past is overwritten with additional layers of time. One is indicated by the silhouettes of everyday objects: everyone recognizes the shape of a DVD or handles coins on a daily basis. These objects thus reflect the present. Another layer is the time required by the “imaging technique” applied. Unlike the exposure of film – usually a matter of fractions of a second – the bleaching of the printed pages of a magazine requires a long period of time.