Interview: Walter Niedermayr

Walter Niedermayr: Bildraum (installation view), 2010.

How did your collaboration with SANAA commence?

We’ve known each other since 2000. Ryue Nishizawa had come across a book of mine in Spain, I think, in 1999, and after that he and Kazuyo Sejima contacted me. We met each other the following year, when I had an exhibition in Tokyo at the Koyanagi Gallery.

So you established a professional relationship quite fast?

Yes. Our relation might seem a bit strange to some, but I think we each found parallels in our work; we have a similar intuition, similar ideas about our creative approach.

Your photographs are said to bring new perspectives to the architecture of SANAA, but how would you, in your own words, describe your artistic dialogue?

Every time I photograph a new building of SANAA’s, it’s a new experience, a new possibility for me to explore space. Throughout the past 11 years I’ve worked on a project called Bildraum that investigates our perception of images and physical surroundings. The architecture of SANAA continuously gives me new inputs to this investigation. The newest building they made, The Rolex Learning Center in Lausanne, Switzerland, is a good example. It feels almost like walking on hills when you move inside of it. SANAA constantly develops the architectural language, they are never static. In my work I deal with the borderlines of representation through images, and their project always inspires me to further exploration. Nevertheless, we work very independently.

Walter Niedermayr: Bildraum S 240 (Rolex Learning Center, exterior), 2010. 104 cm x 399 cm. Digital pigment print.

What challenges do you face when photographing architecture? How does it differ from photographing mountains or landscapes?

When photographing landscapes, in particularly mountain landscapes, you always navigate in relation to both vertical and horizontal arches. Generally, when you photograph you’re limited to work with the horizontal view-point only. The bird perspective or aerial view-point is not an option. When photographing architecture you’re also challenged by the closed structure of the particular space. But this is not a new experience for me as I’ve always enjoyed exploring different types of spatial structures. My project Raumfolgen, in this respect, deals with spaces that are excluded from normal view, like prisons, hospitals and other institutions. You can’t say that architecture produces space, but it does structure it, and to me, this is an interesting challenge.

Walter Niedermayr: Bildraum S 9 (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanzawa), 2004. 104 cm x 265 cm. C-print.

How would you describe your artistic project in general? What is your aim?

I try to pose some questions about the image. What is the reality of images? What is the reality of space? Questions, that has to do with our way of seeing images. Normally we perceive what’s going on around us in a very dynamic way. We are constantly focusing on objects, humans and surroundings. Through my work, I try to mimic this dynamic perception by combining a series of photographs into one conjoined piece. The pieces I’m showing at DAC are therefore presented as diptychs and triptychs.

Artists are often prepared to go to great lengths for their art – you’ve been known to climb the mountains you photograph.

Yes, that’s true. For me, exploring the space has to do with movement. When I go by foot, I have a better understanding of the environment I’m photographing and from which view point the image will do best. Sometimes I take advantage of the transportation available, but I feel it’s important to be conscious of what’s going on in the particular space, and this is mainly attained be experiencing it through sensory perception.

Walter Niedermayr: Bildraum S 233 (Rolex Learning Center, interior), 2010. 104 cm x 265 cm. Digital pigment print.

Your photographs of landscapes have been said to be reminiscent of German romantic paintings, especially those of Caspar David Friedrich. Do you agree?

I think this notion must have appeared in some art review. The comparison probably comes from the shared interest in the sublime landscape. But I find the idea of a sublime landscape difficult, especially in our present time. I define the sublime as a sense of emptiness, calm, and solitary contemplation, but a lot of my pictures portray the industrialization of the alpine landscapes. The sublime landscape has become almost impossible to recover, everywhere you go tourism has taken over. Tourism is a huge industry and maybe one of the biggest economic players in the world. In my work, I try to give my audience an impression of the process that’s going on in these places.

Would you say that your pictures convey a social conscience?

Yes, they might reveal a glimpse of our social constitution, our treatment of space and landscape. I believe it’s a big problem in Middle Europe.

Do you consider your project a critical one?

I’m not an ecologist. I only wish to say “this is the status of things”. You can look at my pictures, but you must be self-conscious to fully understand what’s going on. I don’t want to point an accusing finger at anyone. It’s not my intention.

Walter Niedermayr: Bildraum S 2 (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanzawa), 2004. 104 cm x 265 cm. C-print.

Could you tell me a little about the technical side to your work? Your photographs are characterized by this translucent whiteness. How does this come to be?

I work with desaturation a lot. I started working with this expression in 1987, I think. Most photography back then was done in very contrasting colour schemes, probably because the film industry and the Kodak Corporation were such huge influences. I wanted to go in a different direction of and prove that desaturation could create a strong expression. I didn’t want the heavy strong colours; I wanted clean colours, maybe even a neutral situation, a white-white.

So how would you categorize your art? Are you moving towards a sort of minimalism?

Yes, you could say that. Minimalism and desaturation both share the act of reduction. On one side, there is the chance that you might lose something in reducing the strength of the colour, like shadows for example, but on the other side, you might gain something too. The more white you engage in a picture, the more the other colours will stand out. White is also interesting to work with due to all the connotations surrounding it. It refers to many phenomenons, to emptiness, and the realm of the imagination and a lot of other things. Also, white holds inside of it all the other colours, which makes it almost exquisite in itself.

Is this also something you might have in common with SANAA?

I think it might be one thing, yes, although SANAA might be more concerned with brightness. Their architecture looks simple, it’s not covered in a ray of colours, but it is at the same time quite complex and intricate in its appearance. It’s not architecture that makes a big show. We might have that in common.

Thank you.

Walter Niedermayr: Bildraum (installation view), 2010.