Matthias Harder
Amin El Dib's "... empty rooms" Portraits

On the occasion of the exhibition "… empty rooms" at Photoplatz Bogota

With his image series of the artists and curators of empty rooms, Amin El Dib attempted something interesting—and succeeded: an unconventional documentation of creative individuals that—beyond a mimetic likeness of people by themselves—represents a kind of presenting of the artistic self in a private context. The Berlin photographer transforms the protagonists' apartments or studios into a stage, as it were; he himself becomes the director of a curious spectacle. Artists and curators are photographed multiple times and ultimately (mostly) presented in triptychs. These are three completely different scenes—even acts of a play—the photographer conceived for them individually and at times spontaneously. He is apparently also interested in breaking the traditional connection in artists’ portraits between artist and work. No representative portraits were created during numerous individual sessions conducted over a several-year period. At the same time, the artists appear in their work context or in the exhibition space, at times with or in front of materials they used or had lying around: Karin Rosenberg, for example, disappears behind a roll of bubble wrap, Catrin Otto under a beanbag; some are characterized via body details, especially hands, or their bodily reflections; some artists gaze into the camera with a focused expression, others incidentally.

Viewed as a whole, the compilation of portraits assembled here may seem a bit arbitrary—but the point of connection remains empty rooms, a loose association of culturally like-minded people and motivated individuals, akin to a Produzentengalerie (self-promotion gallery), which would become a booming Berlin institution, as is well-known. The project was also international in scope, collaborating with a London-based partner institution, the Museum of Installation, highlighting even then the international nature of artists living in Berlin.

Nothing of the works connected to the space can be seen in these black-and-white photographs; ultimately Amin El Dib is not concerned with art documentation, but with the artists and the organizers behind them. empty rooms was a great success in terms of visitor and media response, but a disaster financially because everything was self-financed without any third-party funding. There was of course no future in this, which led to the demise of the project in two phases: first, when empty rooms moved in 1999 from Linienstraße (later: Axel-Springer-Straße) in Kreuzberg to the studio gallery at the Haus am Lützowplatz, and then for good after five exhibitions had been organized there. Most of Amin El Dib‘s portraits were created during this period of transition.

The photographer frequently occupies intermediary zones that do not fail to leave their mark on us and are at times even unsettling. In the twenty-six-part empty rooms portrait series as well, the radical way in which the edge of the image cuts through the heads of artists is bewildering—an artistic stylistic device used since New Vision, once the avant-garde of photography.

Unrestrained by commissions and thus the demands of magazines or those portrayed, Amin El Dib’s portraits are free works in the truest sense of the word. Something like this only happens in close collaboration between photographer and counterpart, where protagonists respond to the unusual image ideas and play along, as it were. The reverberation of art, represented by the artists and curators, resonates in numerous and subtle ways throughout Amin El Dib‘s photographs.

Matthias Harder, 2011