SHOPHOUSES – 4 x 8 m Bangkok

"Far from the traffic jams and the go-go bars, Nitsch takes us into the front rooms of the eight million ordinary Thais who are the real Bangkok: busy, chaotic-looking, organised by an impenetrable idiosyncrasyand unashamedly human." – John Burdett, Author

The city as a living space, and that with its related concept of urbanism as a social phenomenon that according to Louis Wirth describes the rationalised lifestyle of urban people in comparison to the provinciality of rural inhabitants, is among the great themes of contemporary photography. Barely uttered, the “magic word” creates in our minds large pictures in which develop the technological aesthetic of urban-building excesses in globalised mega-cities. What we often forget in this respect is a second dimension of urbanism, which embraces the coexistence of various types of people, each with their own identity, in a limited living space. With his SHOPHOUSES – 4 x 8 m Bangkok series of works, Nitsch focuses precisely on this dimension.

Beyond the skyscrapers and neon signs, which also increasingly oust the traditional cityscape of Bangkok, the photographer-artist, who was born in Germany in 1973, grants us an intimate view of the retail businesses that are typical of Southeast Asia and the lives of their owners. For many of them the mostly two-storey shop, that on the lower level is open to the street, is workplace and living space in one. Thus Nitsch’s photographs condense entire lifestyles in cramped surrounding that are often crammed full to the last centimetre and nevertheless radiate an almost meditative peace.

This peace is surprising because, as noted by Roman Rahmacher, himself an authority on Asia and picture editor with Gruner + Jahr, it is “diametrically opposed to the Bangkok that I have previously been aware of.” And it is a fact that for European eyes it is only a bewildering confusion at first glance. But if one allows the pictures to make an impression, a fractal pattern with a high degree of similarity is to be gradually recognised in the overfilled rooms, which from the sheer number of objects suddenly makes a structured Mandelbrot set. The chaos becomes a cosmos and thus transforms into its opposite: an orderliness, to which the photographs additionally lend their characteristic power of peace.

With SHOPHOUSES – 4 x 8 m Bangkok, Nitsch has managed to capture with a very precise view an unusual subject that is slowly being forgotten and which above all reminds us Europeans how one can live and photograph urbanity. It is exactly that which makes these pictures so worth seeing.

SHOPHOUSES in Shophouse: The exhibition will be held at the newly opened KATHMANDU PHOTO GALLERY, in a wonderfully-restored old pre-war shophouse aptly located near the Indian (Sri Mariamma) Temple in Bangkok’s financial district with friendly support by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Bangkok.

SHOPHOUSES – 4 x 8 M BANGKOK, AWARDS
International Photography Award Los Angeles winner of "Honorable Mention".

EXHIBITION INFO
KATHMANDU GALLERY
Wonderfully-restored old pre-war shophouse!
87 Pan Road, Silom
(near Indian Temple)
10500 Bangkok
Thailand
www.kathmandu-bkk.com

PRE-OPENING
Speech by German Ambassador Dr. Hanns Schumacher
07.08.2010 (from 6.30 - 9 pm)

EXHIBITION
07.08.2010 - 26.09.2010

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