René Schmalschläger
René, It is like a person you see on the bus, your eyes lock for a brief moment and adrenaline rushes through your body. You see him, he sees you, he smiles, you smile, he gets off the bus and you stay. It isn’t love, it isn’t a memory, it is a possibility. It is a brief look into a parallel universe where you would have known each other forever. But you didn’t and you won’t and it doesn’t matter because right there, at that moment is where you meet. My view towards your work is similar. They are all encounters that I’ve had; brief moments where I have constructed a relationship in my mind. I see the darkness, I feel aroused I see emptiness, I feel a longing I see patterns, I feel safe I see the trees, I feel strength I see the veils, I feel beautiful I feel the warmth of the sun and the chill of the shadows she casts over. Your work is that tangible to me. A city expressing itself through an artist revealing himself. You moved me from the get go. When our friend introduced us. When our friend left us. No need for explanation. But I want you to know that right there at that moment is where we met in life. And right there is where I met your art. And I love LOVE your art. Nataša Heydra
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
We Were Here Six men on a roof in the hot morning sun, trying to adjust that giant sheer drape onto the façade of the building they are standing on. A bold, middle-aged man standing in his office on the top floor of that corporate building, phone in hand, wondering whether he should try to call his mother again. Three children playing with a stray dog. The reddish brown blood on the knee of the oldest girl is mixed with the orange gray of the gravel they are playing on. She doesn’t seem to mind because she’s smiling. The photographer was there; his protagonists were there. Maybe not at the same time, but you can tell they were.
20
By denying all physical presence of the human body in his work, René Schmalschläger confronts us with our fear of solitude and triggers that bit of agoraphobia we all carry inside us. The abandoned buildings, the empty streets, the lonely state of the construction sites ‒ they all seem to represent some kind of loss. The way he slices up the city in his photographs seems to leave no room for the anecdotal: what you see are the bricks, the concrete, and the palm trees, not the human actions that they host. It seems as if René considers these as noise, only distracting you from those immaculately fallible constructions that form the body of the city. At the same time, the photographs reveal the undeniably human presence of an artist who’s carefully composing a personal history by cutting and filling the frames with what he chooses to present to us. The lack of people seems to be what “the negative” is to the positive in analogue photography: it wouldn’t exist without its hidden counterpart. So what you see when you look through René’s lens is what is given; what you sense is what completes the image. This is not to say that it is a mere blank canvas one can project his/her own fantasized narratives onto, but it clearly takes an onlooker to see the whole picture. The spaces in René’s work might look empty but they aren’t voids: In their own beauty, they are the witnesses to our past and the promise of things to come. Tim Leyendekker
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
INDEX Cover
July 22, 2009 - L’example, Barcelona - Catalonia
Page 2
Letter to René from Nataša
Page 3
April 17, 2009 - Rotterdam - The Netherlands
Page 4
September 20, 2009 - Montjuïc, Barcelona - Catalonia
Page 5
August 19, 2011 - Lijnbaan, Rotterdam - The Netherlands
Page 6
November 1, 2009 - CCCB, Barcelona - Catalonia
Page 6
June 24, 2011 - Kruisplein, Rotterdam - The Netherlands
Page 7
January 16, 2010 - Forum, Barcelona - Catalonia
Page 8
August 13, 2009 - Gràcia, Barcelona - Catalonia
Page 9
March 13, 2010 - Catedral de Santa Eulàlia, Barcelona - Catalonia
Page 10 July 22, 2009 - L’example, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 10 January 10, 2010 - Carrer de Wellington, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 11 September 6, 2009 - Jardins del Princep de Girona, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 11 February 10, 2010 - Avinguda Diagonal, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 12 December 27, 2009 - Barcelona - Catalonia
Page 12 February 7, 2010 - Gràcia, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 13 March 10, 2010 - El Born, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 13 March 6, 2010 - El Born, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 14 March 13, 2010 - Palau de la Música Catalana, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 15 November 1, 2009 - CCCB, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 16 September 22, 2012 - Centraal Station, Rotterdam - The Netherlands Page 16 February 14, 2010 - Gràcia, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 17 December 31, 2009 - Gràcia, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 18 September 15, 2012 - Madrid - Spain Page 20 ‘We Were Here‘ by Tim Leyendekker Page 22 October 11, 2009 - Teatre Grec, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 22 December 31, 2009 - Gràcia, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 22 March 13, 2010 - Carrer de l’Hospital, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 23 November 8, 2009 - Rambla del Poblenou, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 24 October 28, 2012 - Biblioteca Nacional, Buenos Aires - Argentina Page 25 December 17, 2011 - Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid - Spain Page 26 January 22, 2010 - Avinguda Diagonal, Barcelona -Catalonia Page 26 September 15, 2012 - Madrid - Spain Page 27 July 26, 2009 - Girona - Catalonia Page 27 July 26, 2009 - Santa Pau - Catalonia Page 28 September 12, 2012 - Madrid - Spain Page 29 February 23, 2010 - Plaça de Lesseps, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 30 October 18, 2009 - Montjuïc, Barcelona - Catalonia Page 31 October 20, 2012 - Formosa, Argentina Page 34 Colophon Page 35 September 10, 2009 - Barcelona - Catalonia
This is a publication with the work of René Schmalschläger as an addition to his solo exhibition at projectspace SARATIMTRUST from March 16th to March 31st 2013 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Curated by Nataša Heydra. Artist and mutual friend Tim Leyendekker contributed the text ‘We Were Here’, pages 20-21. Designed by Nataša Heydra & René Schmalschläger. The publication is printed in a edition of 35. If you would like to reproduce or transmit parts of this publication in any form or by any means please contact rene@schmalschlaeger.nl
34
35