Adam Fuss: My Ghost

« My Ghost » is the title of a series of photographs Adam Fuss began 8 years ago. All of them express a feeling of silent grief and loss. Recurrent motifs like christening dresses, rising smoke, flying birds and butterflies suggest the trace of a beloved person, who is not part of our life anymore; whose body has been retrieved from the earth but still remains present on an emotional and spiritual level. The intention of the artist is personal and references to his own past.

The definition of photography as a trace of the past, a remembered light, can be perfectly applied to the work of  Adam Fuss. By using archaic techniques like the photogram and the daguerrotype, he intensifies the notion of melancholic remembrance and evokes specific associations that are impossible to accomplish with modern technology. Despite its historic associations, there is no sentimental longing for the past. Adam Fuss approaches photography in a contemporary, rather formal and controlled manner. He does not point out a definite story line but preserves the ambiguous character of the motifs by incorporating chance occurence into the photographic moment. The enigma of a smoke column is, for instance, recorded directly on paper by a flash of light and stilled on the tangible format of the photogram. As a result, the veil of smoke seems to literally descend on the paper;  becomes nearly tactile, almost real. It is precisely this quality of presence – the moment the subliminal passes into the spiritual – that the artist tries to retain in the photographs of “My Ghost”.

Adam Fuss brings the viewer under the spell of this refined, decorative images and enchants him by using mysterious photographic processes. Beauty and technique however do not conceal the genuine spirit of the work but accompany the viewer to the essence : the content and the intention of the artist. “I am using beauty as a thing to catch people”, says Fuss. “Beyond that beauty, I hope there is something relevant”.

Adam Fuss (°1961) is an English photographer, living and working in New York. He is famous for his inventive experiments with photography and his search for new images that go beyond the classic syntax of the camera. Fuss’s second exhibition in the gallery comprises a selection of recent daguerrotypes and photograms.