Claire de Lune by leica2021

Claire de Lune

Serge Hasenböhler at the Galerie Gisèle Linder, Basel, Mar. 9-Apr. 9, 2011 For years now, the photo artist Serge Hasenböhler has been working in series. Each of these develops out of another – as its logical and natural consequence. The individual works of the series are united by a common title and are then consecutively numbered. A series centred on the same idea, the same concept, develops in this way. It is layers and systems that interest the artist here. In his experimental laboratory, he examines physical and natural laws as well as their disruption. The raw material for his work is provided by close-ups of plants, animals, fruits, vegetables, toys, everyday objects, and of nature and the artist’s own hand, as well. Hasenböhler composes surreal images out of simple, beautifully photographed individual motifs; the composite images emerge from the juxtaposition of the known and unknown, the ordinary and the fantastic. The new, large-format series ‘Clair de lune’ is introduced by the trilogy Sun-Moon-Earth, consisting of three small-format works in which the artist literally attempts to 'grasp' these three spheres. The fireball of the Sun lies in his hand, the Moon is enfolded by his entire hand, and the Earth is presented to the viewer as the known unknown. In the subsequent works, Hasenböhler singles out the Moon to set it in the most diverse contexts. This satellite revolves around the Earth and always presents it with the same side. The Moon is to be found on the periphery and is often invisible, but always present. To the present day, there is disagreement about its influence; in its incomprehen-sibility, it inspires works of literature, music, and art. Although we know that it is a sphere, we perceive it as a disc. The moon’s appearance correspondingly oscillates between disc and sphere in the works of ’Clair de lune’. Hasenböhler places the moon on a pedestal in some works: a chair, the surging fountain created by a ball thrown into the water, a dark pedestal. In other works, the artist weaves the depiction of the moon into images from his digital storehouse. Hasenböhler constructs the works of ‘Clair de lune’ exclusively on his computer; he is thus able to more rigorously remove the objects from their context, to utilise them as ‘object-images’. Balance is sought in the image itself, in the layering of the different levels of the digital images. The artist's programmatic disregard for proportions corresponds to the discrepancy between the real size of the moon and its apparent size, as it is seen in the sky. In the small-format series ‘Lunatic’, Hasenböhler integrates the moon into found black-and-white photographs in a playful and ironic manner. In these works, he thematises the moon’s effects, its gravitational pull, and its apparent radiance. This satellite of the earth seems to naturally find its