Uwe Seyl

Variationen einer Ateliersituation, 2012

In his most recent series of photographs, the Stuttgart photographer Uwe Seyl abandons any quality of documentary and brings out the conceptual factor – the artificial and programmatic qualities – more strongly. Small-format black-and-white studio presentations show a large roll of paper of the type that is usually used as a neutral photographic background for still-life-like motifs, randomly put up and allowed to fall by the photographer. In the background three metal stands for lamps. The contours and lines of the objects together with light and shadow create an interplay of real and imaginative lines in space. The changes in the lighting were all created using only one spotlight and in a swift ‘performative’ action; they reinforce the objective and conceptual character of this investigation of classical still-life photography through the fundamental instruments of the media itself.