'All That Could Have Been', 2006
Sascha Weidner, who was born in Osnabrück, Germany in 1976, takes photographs of a generation of young people for whom the future is uncertain and appears to hold little - hence the title of his current exhibition, 'All That Could Have Been', which opened in Berlin on Saturday. Fittingly for the medium of photography, which is designed to capture and preserve 'the moment', Wiedner's subjects appear consumed by the present, living it to the full, trapped in it, while at the same time, Weidner with his innate sense of the poetic conveys with tenderness a sense of loss to which his subjects are perhaps even oblivious.
In a catalogue text written to accompany a previous exhibition of Wiedner's photographs, his pictures were described as being like songs: 'the drums batter away in the background, the guitars scrape. It sounds like punk, but is, in fact, the next, and next-again, and next-next-again generation'. The elegiac photographs in 'All That Could Have Been', which pay homage to his compatriot Wolfgang Tillmans' pictures of young people, savour the moments of exuberance and joy so strongly felt by his subjects, which will soon become distant, blurry memories. And the beauty of Wiedner's exquisitely composed photographs renders the overriding sense of loss all the more poignant.
Sascha Weidner has been nominated for the Preis der Nationalgalerie Berlin. In 2006 he won a DAAD scholarship in Los Angeles. To find out more about his work visit the artist's website: www.saschaweidner.de
Sascha Weidner: 'All That Could Have Been'
Until 17 February 2007
Galerie Conrads at Filiale Berlin, Germany
Brunnenstraße 188--190
10119 Berlin-Mitte (U8 Rosenthaler Platz)
T: +49 211 3230720
www.galerieconrads.de
'Vole II', 2006
'Aurora II'
'Undone II'
)
)
)