An exhibition of almost 40 photographs that the filmmaker and artist Wim Wenders has taken since 1983. These are large scale landscape photographs taken on his travels around the world, in countries such as: Brazil, Italy, Japan, Germany, Australia, Armenia and the United States. Escaping the well trodden tourist path, the artist seeks to break away from the usual and seek out a retreat in the overlooked and disregarded corners of the landscape.

He says about these works:
‘When you travel a lot, and when you love to just wander around and get lost, you can end up in the strangest spots. I have a huge attraction to places. Already when I look at a map, the names of mountains, villages, rivers, lakes or landscape formations excite me, as long as I don’t know them and have never been there... I seem to have sharpened my sense of place for things that are out of place. Everybody turns right, because that’s where it’s interesting, I turn left where there is nothing! And sure enough, I soon stand in front of my sort of place. I don’t know, it must be some sort of inbuilt radar that often directs me to places that are strangely quiet, or quietly strange.’

He first began to use photography as an art medium whilst out location scouting for his early films and much of the work in this exhibition has a filmic quality. Partly because of the scale and ambition of the work, and their format, especially the panoramic shots. Others spaces that capture him are more liminal and I think these are the more successful and engaging works. Knowing that he is a filmmaker seems to create another layer of narrative to the show, conjuring up a wonder in us of: which film, and what is the story?

Wim Wenders
Places, strange and quiet
15 April – 14 May 2011
Haunch of Venison, 6 Burlington Gardens, London W1S 3ET
www.haunchofvenison.com

S L Mehrnoosh

images:
1. 'The Red Bench', Onomichi, 2005 C print © Wim Wenders, Courtesy Haunch of Venison.
2. 'Open Air Screen', Palermo, 2007 C print © Wim Wenders Courtesy Haunch of Venison.