Boris Eldagsen
The Poems
Boris Eldagsen’s photographs explore the limits of what can be depicted. The ‘POEMS’ utilise the external reality, to paint the inner reality, that of the unconscious, archetypical and unspoken. Without excessive materials or digital effects, Eldagsen combines street with staged photography and recreates spectacular and dreamlike images. The photographic mediums of light and shade become symbolic of the spaces between, those that are inaccessible to the rational mind and compel the viewer to resort to their own memories and feelings.
Beyond what is fashionable and current, Eldagsen creates alchemical connections between painting, film and theatre that defy categorisation.
This work was awarded the Prix Voies Off / Arles in 2013.
Bio
Berlin-based German artist Boris Eldagsen has studied photography and visual arts at the Art Academy of Mainz, conceptual art and intermedia at the Academy of Fine Arts Prague, fine art the Sarojini Naidu School of Arts & Communication Hyderabad / India – and philosophy at the Universities of Cologne and Mainz. Boris works as a multi-media consultant and a lecturer.
In 2013 he became a member of Deutsche Fotografische Akademie.
Related Links
BORIS+NATASCHA – collaborative work with Australian artist Natascha Stellmach.
SUPERHIGH – mockumentary reality show on getting high, a collaboration with Sabine Taeubner.
Too hard to fathom,
too dark to feel.
Break free,
enlighten thee.
Nothing more to say,
no more race to play.
I am one who believes in the combination of words and photos, but this is an example where maybe it would have been better to have put the photos up and to have not written anything at all, save, perhaps, a title and credit. It would have been a better experience for me if had I not read this statement:
“Boris Eldagsen’s photographs explore the limits of what can be depicted.”
No. They don’t. There are no limits to what can be depicted.
That said, had I not read that, I think the total viewing experience would have been good for me. There are some unique, fascinating images here for one to look at and ponder for awhile.
I do not even pretend to understand the art blah, but I do understand good images and many of these are very good indeed.
The introduction is utter nonsense but perhaps it works for some people. I really don’t like the 2 or 3 where the whites are totally blown but if I’d just seen the orange flavoured pictures with no words or different words I would love it.
I love this series. It blows me away. Wish I had the vision to do something with this type of impact.
While looking at the pictures, and before seeing the comments, I was thinking of writing, “As usual, I have one quibble…” But then I saw the comments written before mine, which share the same reaction. My feeling is that Burn should not require an “artist statement” with submissions — and even if that is required, the photographer should have the choice of not having it published. Clearly, this essay works better without this introduction. No words are necessary.
I must echo everyone else. Love the photos, really awesome stuff. I could do without the art blah and hyperbole.
I LOVE BORIS’ WORK, PROFOUNDLY! :))
and Boris and I just ‘met’ via a photogroup we both are a part of on FB….damn, small world!…..
no time to write at the moment, so i’ll simply echo what I had written earlier to him: the tissues that unite the miraculous of the moment with the fever of the constructed yields something that each of us grapple with: name it this:
Post Tenebras Lux…..
so happy to see his alchemy and sorcery (at the heart of poetry) here at BURN…..
Ich kenne dich, du bist die tief Gebeugte,
ich, der Durchbohrte, bin dir untertan.
Wo flammt ein Wort, das für uns beide zeugte?
Du—ganz, ganz wirklich. Ich—ganz Wahn.
–Celan
and btw, PLEASE watch Boris’ videos as well, that are an integral part of this work :)
http://www.eldagsen.com/
A happy co-incidence that Imants Krumins’ “stories you will never know allocated randomly” precedes this. Imants uses constituents of media and visual arts which to me transgress the limits of form in photography, offering an end-point to which the plain photographic form cannot exceed. Whereas Boris Eldagsen photographs the same fields of arts in order to explore the limits of depicted content.
Another co-incidence: Boris’ website is titled “how to disappear completely”, a sentiment I first encountered in Winogrand. Winogrand’s desire to solve the problems offered in the dynamic tension between Form and Content within the photograph, are echoed in these two presentations.
It’s exciting to view the two works, make some associations, and witness the interplay between them.
JEFF HLADUN
we often try to sequence not only the content within each essay, yet also the essays themselves….doesn’t alway work….yet often it does…i think you may remember way back in the beginning of Burn, i always thought that our online dialogue and best of the best would make a good book someday….a sort of pop up educational experience…learning is after all however it happens…so i always look at even things here online as potentially having some tactile permanence…hence hard copies already via Burn01 and Burn02..and upcoming soonest Burn03…all from this “virtual” community….you have made some of the best critiques and evaluations on Burn….at this point in time i cannot pay you as a scribe, but perhaps i can give you some archival presence…
cheers, david
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The images are very good. Very pretty. I don’t really mind the artist’s statement because in the end it is the photos that tell the telling. What it seems like to me is that most of the comments above are bothered by the artist’s lack of humility in his statement.
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I particularly like Nos 4 and 6, but even more, I like image No 20 – for some reason it reminds me of Gregory Crewdson’s work.