John Gossage
Ohne Titel
Ohne Titel, 1993
From Looks for Books
Gelatin-silver print, collaged on cardboard, 25.1 x 20.3 cm
Collection Fotomuseum Winterthur, Estate George Reinhart
2014-031-011
© John Gossage
b. 1946 (New York, US), lives and works in Washington, US
His various artist’s books allowed John Gossage to respond to what he considered Western photographers’ disinterest in the Berlin Wall. They are integral elements of his overarching artistic project of visualizing unpleasant, hidden, and repressed elements of urban space. Gossage published little when the Wall was still standing. For example, “Stadt des Schwarz” (City of black; 1987) includes no more than eighteen images. Only in “Berlin in the Time of the Wall” (2004) were a large number of his uncanny, black-and-white impressions made public; the photographs contrast dark fragments of Berlin with intentionally fuzzy contours.