Stefan Heyne: Naked Light: Exposing Infinity

Stefan Heyne: Naked Light: Exposing Infinity by Aline SmithsonJune 22, 2014

German Photographer, Stefan Heyne, has recently opened an exhibition, NAKED LIGHT. Exposing Infinity, at Städtische Galerie Dresden in Dresden, running through September 14th and includes 30 of works, including 15 new photographs. Through his use of extreme soft focus as an artistic device, he searches the observational parameters for the perception of images. “Stefan Heyne questions the basic principles of photography: sharpness and recognizability. By leaving these parameters out of the image content, he breaks with conventional ways of seeing. In his large-format works his motifs – mainly landscapes, everyday objects, and interiors – are liberated from their original form. Extreme abstraction renders the motif unidentifiable. The context of the actual shooting likewise loses any significance.”

The exhibition also includes the artist’s first-ever large-scale architectural installation, commissioned by the Städtische Galerie Dresden.The walk-in installation The Enlightenment (13 x 7 m) expands the dissolution of space and the disappearance of objective reality conveyed by Stefan Heyne’s photographs. The Enlightenment is integrated into the exhibition space, creating a seamless transition between both “spheres” — the pictorial space and the exhibition space, between the installation in the center of the room and the classical presentation of the works on the outside. Visitors can enter the work to become part of an “unpredictable” universe. The photographic medium is distilled into light and darkness, confronting the viewer with infinity. A paradigm shift is occurring in fine art photography, from the documentary and representational to a new abstraction that radically questions the medium.

Zimmer 911, 2007
C-Print auf Alu-Dibond
125 x 188 cm
© Stefan Heyne und VG Bild-Kunst,
Bonn 2014

The walk-in installation The Enlightenment (13 x 7 m) expands the dissolution of space and the disappearance of objective reality conveyed by Stefan Heyne’s photographs. The Enlightenment is integrated into the exhibition space, creating a seamless transition between both “spheres” — the pictorial space and the exhibition space, between the installation in the center of the room and the classical presentation of the works on the outside. Visitors can enter the work to become part of an “unpredictable” universe. The photographic medium is distilled into light and darkness, confronting the viewer with infinity. A paradigm shift is occurring in fine art photography, from the documentary and representational to a new abstraction that radically questions the medium. With his resolutely blurred photographs, Stefan Heyne is positioned at the crux of this contextual and aesthetic renunciation of apparatus-led seeing in favor of a nonrepresentational perceiving of the world. He has succeeded in creating a photography that goes beyond pictorial representation.

Stefan Heyne
3330, 2009
C-Print auf Alu-Dibond
140 x 93 cm
© Stefan Heyne und VG Bild-Kunst,
Bonn 2014

On the occasion of the exhibition, the catalogue STEFAN HEYNE. NAKED LIGHT. Die Belichtung des Unendlichen / Exposing Infinity will be published by Hatje Cantz Verlag; edited by Gisbert Porstmann, with essays by Markus Gabriel, Gerhard Gamm, Steffen Huck, Lyle Rexer, Anna Schinzel, Michael Stoeber and a foreword by Gisbert Porstmann; 128 pages, bilingual (German/English), numerous color images, 24 x 29 cm, hardcover, with dust jacket, ISBN: 978-3-7757-3841-5