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Once, Still & Forever

by Jessica Backhaus

Photographs: Jessica Backhaus

Text: Elisabeth Biondi, Jean-Christophe Ammann, Jessica Backhaus

Publisher: Kehrer Verlag

88 pages

Pictures: 55 colour illustrations

Year: 2012

ISBN: 978-3-86828-323-5

Price: 48 €

Comments: 24 x 29,5 cm; Hardcover; German and English

"Once, Still and Forever" sets out a quest for traces of time and meaning – things that once were, still are and will stay forever. Some of the works in this latest photography series by Jessica Backhaus date from her last year in New York, where she made her home for 14 years. But others tell of her radical break with the past and her return to her old homeland, Europe. The personal and cultural changes honed her awareness and caused her to contemplate the fragility of our emotions and existence –
thoughts the photographer translates into her own characteristic visual language. Darker nuances come to the fore in the still lifes; picture planes splinter, hinting at powerful transformations. At 16, Backhaus left Germany, only returning to Berlin 22 years later. What was once, still is and will forever remain is the artist’s infallible instinct for pictorial composition, a deftness she continues to take to new heights. Her views of ostensibly prosaic scenes open up to us a cosmos of unforeseen meanings while evoking a mood of affectionate familiarity.
She is regarded as one of the most distinguished voices in contemporary photography in Germany today. Her work is exhibited and published internationally and is found in important collections.

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