ANDRÉAS LANG
“In my work, I reveal the different layers of history, mythology, and the present, to create a narrative image that’s in limbo between past and present, real and imaginary. A form of visual archeology, at times blending or colliding with immanent social, political, and ecological realities.”
Interview by Semra Sevin
Berlin-based photographer Andréas Lang holds close his childhood roots of growing up in the Palatinate frontier region of Germany, five kilometers from the French border. He uses that frontier identity as a starting point for approaching work, honoring the many historical layers of every location. He began his career in fashion but changed to art photography in the 90s. Andreas has had solo exhibitions at the Rathausgalerie/Kunsthalle City of Munich, the German Historical Museum, Berlin, the Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung, Berlin, the Photography Collection at the City of Munich Museum, and the Stiftung Genshagen, Brandenburg. His work is in the collections of the Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen Berlin, the German Historical Museum, and the Museum of the City of Munich. He is also the recipient of many grants, including those from the German Federal Foreign Office, the Berlin Cultural Senate, and the City of Munich.
Semra Sevin: What have you been working on recently?
Andréas Lang: II received the Tarabya residency and stipend in Istanbul and I started working on a new project in Turkey. I also am about to finish a video project on the history of a Berlin building and my book Eclipse on historical landscapes in the middle east.
Nightclub, Damascus, 2010, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: What recent shows have you been in?
AL: Currently, I'm part of the exhibition The Theft of Fire. From Prometheus to Petroleum, in Tbilisi, Georgia. I exhibited at the Lagos Biennal in 2019 and had a solo show at Guardini Foundation Gallery. In 2018 Mess with your Values at nbk in Berlin. In 2016/2017 the solo shows Cameroon and Kongo: In search of traces and Phantom Geography at the German Historical Museum in Berlin.
Blue Window, USA, 2007/2011, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: What was your initial motivation to become a photographer?
AL: Well, I almost became a musician, I was playing drums in a punk band called Nasse Hunde (the wet dogs). Music was very important to me, still is. I guess I chose photography because of my curiosity—I was curious about the world, trying to find out who I was, and exploring that with images, with photography. And then I was offered this internship and work as an assistant with a photographer, who back then was kind of famous, so that's how it happened.
Road to Jerusalem, Israel, 2007, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: Would it be right to say your decision is a result of your curiosity to see the world and show it through your own eyes?
AL: Yes. And I liked cameras. I liked the material, yet I always loved paintings in art. I was born in a small town so already choosing to work in the creative field was a big step. If I had grown up in a more arts involved environment maybe I would have studied painting at an art academy.
SS: What fascinates you about the camera as a creative tool?
AL: It somehow is like a magical tool. I like in analog photography that the image disappears into this black box, into the void, and then it reappears when you develop the film, like some memory or dream.
Meggido, Israel, 2007, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
Plantation in Galilee, Israel, 2007 © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: What kind of camera do you use, and how do you decide which one to use?
AL: I use several cameras: the Leica M6, Mamiya 7, Yashica 6x6, and a Sony for my video works. The choice of camera is also a physical and pragmatic decision. I use the Leica in low light when it is very dark. I use the Mamiya 7 when there is enough light and I intend a detailed somehow epic scenery for big formats.
SS: Artists are usually connected to their own history or life story in terms of their work—what would be your story?
AL: I grew up in Zweibrücken, in the Palatinate region. I think my childhood and the region where I was born and grew up and remembering those landscapes are important to my work. There are these huge forests and hills with bizarre rocks that could be out of some surrealist Max Ernst paintings or German Romanticism. And then those war ruins, bunkers inside the forest from WWII. It is a region that has been ravaged by history and its very close to France. I guess my identity is a frontier identity.
Dead Cities I, Syria, 2006, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: You used to work in the fashion industry. Why did you leave fashion photography to become a fine art photographer?
AL: It happened quite a while ago, it was in the mid-90s when I decided this. It was a gradual process of changing from fashion photography to my personal works. I think the main reason was the ignorance I encountered in the fashion world, ignorance on many levels. And I didn't like the human exploitation that was happening, how people were treated.
Near Sodom, Israel, 2007, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: Does human exploitation, to you, restrict itself to models? What about the ones that are photographing or working behind the scenes?
AL: Of course, and it happens to almost everyone trying to make a career in that field. And then look at the women and children who work in Bangladesh or elsewhere in slavery conditions for the fashion industry. It is revolting.
SS: What was the transition like?
AL: Well, it didn’t appear to me immediately that I was going to be an artist. It happened slowly. It was a gradual process of moving away from fashion, still working with magazines, but more in the field of doing portraits, photo essays. And then, from the photo essays, getting more and more personal with my topics. My first personal series was on the Cirque Romanès, a Roma family who had a small circus in Paris. They were in my neighborhood and initially I was looking for a location for a fashion shoot. Later, Vogue used it, and Galliano hired the acrobats for a show. I never did a fashion shoot there. To me, the reality was more interesting, more poetic, then anything some fashion fantasy could create. They became like a family—I photographed there several years and we did a book together.
Welcome, Jerusalem, 2007, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: How did the art world start to open up for you? Was it in France or in Germany that you started to become recognized as an artist?
AL: I think it started in France. At some point, I had more and more artist friends. One friend told me, “You’re an artist, you know?’ First, I didn’t quite understand. When I started working on landscapes and places it became clear that there was something very personal in it that was linked to my childhood, to images that were sunken in the subconscious, in forgetting—and you have to dig them up. It was a very introspective process of looking at that and also looking at art history, surrealism and romanticism, also cinematography, the films by Jean Cocteau and Andreij Tarkovsky for example.
Ruin City, Syria, 2006, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: What talents did you bring from fashion photography into your current art photography?
AL: It could be mostly a sense of mise en scène and composition. And maybe I learned about structure. You need to be organized and highly professional to organize a shoot and be a director of that whole group of people who work as a team.
SS: Are photographers who have studied at art school different from ones who learned on the job, like you?
AL: It depends which school you’re talking about. With lots of art or photography school students, it is rare to see work that takes the risk of approaching a personal or unique language. Many are copying what is already has been successful or accomplished.
Northern Valley, Cameroon, 2012 © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: What drives you in your work?
AL: Curiosity! I’m very interested in the hidden aspect of places, a secret, that what maybe is invisible at first. In general t’s places that are linked with history and/or mythology. I approach it like a visual archeologist, which is like digging up something. It’s like looking for what is hidden in a place and landscape, approaching a complete picture where all these layers appear: the past, the present, the real and the imaginary.
Viewpoint, Cameroon, 2012, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: You told me a story about the attic of your mother, where you found all those records of the German colonial times.
AL: When I found this material, I had just finished a long term project on historical places in the middle east. Finding this box full of images and a travelogue that belonged to my great-grandfather intrigued me, and brought up many questions. I started researching in public and private archives to discover a hidden and untold chapter of history. And again, it is about places and history. Quickly it became evident that its a topic I should work on.
Backyard Cemetery, Cameroon, 2016, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: In studying The Crusades and colonialism in Africa and your travels, did you change your own view of yourself about your Germanness or German identity?
AL: I’m not sure what Germanness is or German identity, and I certainly don’t feel this in me. I feel European or maybe between French and German, like the frontier region I was born in. And I’ve lived over 10 years in Paris and felt very much at home there. We always carry the baggage of collective history and guilt, especially in Germany. And of course it does when you research your great-grandfather’s colonial past. The Crusades and Colonialism were European endeavors.
German Hanging Bridge, Cameroon, 2016, screenshot video-installation HD 17min. © Andréas Lang, VG
Fort Doume, Cameroon, 2016, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: How do you think Germany handles its colonial past today, and do you see patterns of colonial behavior in society today towards minorities in Germany?
AL: Yes, in many ways, Colonialism is like a virus. This superiority attitude still exists, unfortunately. The media still approaches Africa with stereotypes as well. Then there is this rise of the far-right in Europe and elsewhere. We have to stand up against this, it is intolerable. In some ways, I think a few German institutions are starting to handle it in a conscious way, to look at the past and take responsibility, and it is now even on the political agenda. This is a very positive thing. Germany became, at some point, conscious of its past, especially after the RAF years in the 70s. Previously, in post-war Germany you had many former Nazis in positions of power. Judges, politicians etc. The new rise of far right is alarming though and I’m worried about today’s lack of education.
Colonial Grave, Cameroon, 2012, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
Workers and President, Cameroon, 2012, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: As a fine art photographer, you live from grants and from selling your work. How many hours do you work per day now?
AL: It varies. Sometimes I work day and night, like when I'm printing, for example. Sometimes I work twelve hours or more, sometimes eight hours. But in general, when I'm preparing an exhibition, it's maximum work. To deal with stress, I meditate regularly, do yoga and qigong. These practices make me feel good, centered, clear, confusion disappears.
Residentur, Cameroon, 2012, © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
SS: Do you think it's hard for artists to have families given how much time is spent working?
AL: It’s not easy to be an artist and have a family. Not just for the time you have to invest, but also the financial instability can be a problem. I have artist friends who have a family and are very happy, so it can work out. Other artists, when they have kids, they can get absorbed. There is this fear of losing oneself when you have kids, and losing energy and not having time for yourself, your art, and there is a risk. I guess depends on the person how much you can balance that.
SS: And what are your future projects?
AL: I will keep working on my new longterm project in Turkey. Also, my grant and residency in Tarabya, Istanbul was prolonged. Then there is my ongoing project with then french writer, Cécile Wajsbrot, on museums and archives. I’m researching and working on video-installations about Orientalism. There is a solo show coming up in April with that work. My work on Colonialism will be presented in another institution. I am also trying to get funds for a film project on that topic.
Nameless Building, Cameroon, 2012 © Andréas Lang, VG Bild Kunst
