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The world was such a better world in paintings (and photographs) than in my reality. Wim Wenders

Avec Pleasure has chosen to highlight German artist, Wim Wenders on our website this month as we have admired his work as a cinematographer your years but have only recently come to appreciate his significant work as a photographer. We hope that over the holiday period you will take a moment to listen to the interview clip we have added and consider the premise from which he creates his art and enjoy…

When Avec Pleasure was in Berlin this past September researching the newly established Berlin Art Week, I had the great pleasure of attending the opening of WIM WENDERS Photographic Exhibition – 4TRUE & TRUE2, Landscapes, Photographs which was shown at BERLIN’S top Contemporary Art Gallery, BLAIN SOUTHERN.

WIM WENDERS is best known and much loved for his hugely successful films such as, Alice in the Cities (1974), The American Friend (1977), Paris Texas (1984), Wings of Desire (1987), Pina (2011), The Salt of The Earth (2014); nonetheless, Wenders himself is very passionate about his recent body of contemporary photographic works.

Photography, more than cinematic storytelling, turns each picture into a complete metaphor of our existence. Each photograph is literally about life and death… As long as I can remember, I’ve been travelling with a camera in my bag. Wim Wenders

Despite Wim Wenders photographic work being exhibited Internationally for over 30 years in significant museums and galleries, this comprehensive retrospective exhibition of his photographic art practice included a series of works which I had missed before, a series of hauntingly beautiful panoramic Ciba-chrome photographs. This was the first time I have had the opportunity to view these works first hand and I was not disappointed but rather, inspired.

The distinction between place – a specific place, which also means location, a place where many things come together from landscape and architecture to the people who move within them – and narrative or story is an important theme for Wenders. In 1983, he traveled to the American West to begin filming PARIS Texas. This is when WW began establishing his philosophy of practice; his goal to understand PLACE through his Art practice and establish his relationship between the lens and the human eye framing the selected image.