Benedikt Partenheimer

Views of Mt. Fuji, 2012

Benedikt Partenheimer’s series of Views of Mt. Fuji, 2012, stage – borrowing from the color woodcut series of the Japanese painter and woodcut artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) – the spiritually charged national symbol of Japan, Mt. Fuji, which is seen not just from a new perspective in the landscape, but also in its role for the country’s cultural self-image. The ever snow covered mountain peak of the Fuji visually echoes unexpectedly in daily objects like a sake bowl, which is mirrored on the glossy surface of a wooden table. A triangular, dark reflection in moved water surface Partenheimer counterposes with two shots of the sky that surround the mountain. In the center of the assembly finally appears the famous Great Wave off Kanagawa by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. The shot doesn’t show the colored woodcut itself, but the key block of the carved printing plate, which is used to print the sheet No. 1 of the series 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, which Hokusai created between 1830 and 1831. Partenheimers images formulate “an interspace of perception” and show the mountain in a transitory and poetic “moment of recognisability.” (B.P.)