Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Jörg Sasse. This will be Sasse's second exhibition at Lehmann Maupin. Since that first exhibition, Sasse has had one person exhibitions at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and at Portikus in Frankfurt. Sasse was also included in the "Sightings: New Photographic Art" exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London.
Jörg Sasse studied at the Kunstakademie with Bernd and Hilla Becher in Düsseldorf where he now lives and works. Sasse's process begins with his collection of found photographs and snapshots. From this archive, Sasse creates new images using computer manipulation technology to transform the original photographs. In the Portikus catalogue essay by Angelika Nollert, translated here from the German by Diana Resse, Nollert explains the painterly process of constructing each work with the computer.
After he has scanned these shots into the computer he alters the composition, the coloration and the surface appearance of the image on the computer. For this he seeks out a section of the image, mirrors it, changes and/or corrects the perspective, cleans it of any secondary features and replaces individual elements. The newly created image is projected onto a negative and the negative is then enlarged on photographic paper.
Although Sasse's images involve different representations, they possess uniting features. All of the works are characterized by their reduction and the concentration on a few image motifs, by their being out of focus as well as by the well-balanced composition of the image. Despite the bluriness which produces a fleeting, transitory effect, the individual subjects appear to be anchored, stable and calm within the space of the image. Only a few images are animated by people, the equally out-of-focus portrayal of whom, however, retains a transindividual character. With the dissolving of the images into color values, Sasse achieves a level of abstraction which increases the closer one approaches the image.