21.03.–1.5.04

The actual exhibition is dedicated to the Belgian artist Erich Weiss. «Paris-Tokyo» shows works from the two last years and two important stations. In the center are photos, which are taken on broad promenades. The artist combs through the big city jungle for the purpose of dandified, Baudelairess «flaneurs». With a candid camera he records particularities and curious discoveries, by emerging in the multitude and trying to be a part of this. Weiss follows constantly the question, what is necessary, that a person, an object or a building can outstand from the overpowering crowd. For him, it is the constant fascination, to unhinge, to isolate someone or something from the crowd – that indefinable wave, movement and endless volatile – and finally, in the order to record this photographically. On his forays, he considers himself as a touristy paparazzo, which documents with his camera snap-shots of the events. As a voyeur he conquers constantly images. He considers himself almost as criminal, because he collects «intimacy», which feels safe in the crowd. Weiss appropriates the picture language of fashion and publicity; he idealizes beauty and lifts it also on the socket of inaccessibility.

The in the truest sense of the word «inconceivable» dimension of Tokyo, with all the facets and contrariness, let Weiss search on Haruki Murakamis traces for the «100% perfect girl». Snapshots, surprises, mixed with all kinds of contingencies, show a diverse image of women from the metropolis: On one side celebrated tradition on the other side cyberspace allures of maybe fallen angels.

In Paris he followed a similar strategy in the sense of Baudelaire. For «when words become form» he visited places, which appear in French literature and there he was searching for possible actresses for a virtual encounter of fiction-reality. With the pictures he tries to crack the «Mapping», the local structure, after these the book once had been written. His walks lead to an evitable dialog between the “Before” and the “Today”. The texts thereafter become dissolved through the pictures, they loose references and narrative powers to photography – similar to thought pictures of shoot novels

One text work connects the two exhibition rooms – a short statement is translated into Japanese and calligraphically transacted. «Reality belongs to everyone» becomes the epigram of the whole exposition.

Bernhard Bischoff, March 2004