Zug fährt ab
Galerie Jüttner
Montag, 1. November 2010
Künstler/innen
Alistair Fuller
The U-Bahn is the chaotic place which intrinsic function is for people to commute from A-B. People however, for a short time are left with their thoughts, newspapers and phones, in transit, filling their time actively or passively trying to relax between work and home, business-to-business, pleasure-to-pleasure. Some interact with each other; some don’t. The rhythm of the train is settling, like the rocking of a cradle. People feel comfortable, others not.
The diversity, chaos and mayhem of people, animals and objects commuting are the inspiration for Alistair to observe, compose then shoot. He proposes the reality of these objet trouvés into his black and white images that reveal both Surreal and surreal hyper-micro-narratives. Capturing the incongruous juxtapositions that exist on the subway ferrying them from one place to another. Alistair has photographed the Underground in London, New York and now the subject of this exhibition, the U-Bahn in Vienna.
Roland Barthes described the pro-photographic-event, where people consciously give the photograph they want to give - as seen with passport photographs. Alistair feels that this creates a disturbance. To retain the tender observations in his imagery he set about photographing from the hip to capture the natural essence of the U-Bahn flow. A person reading a newspaper at the point where the eyes are closed as in death. Another a ‘Saddam Hussein’ look-alike juxtaposed with the headline ’Wien: Panik” snatched from waist level as the doors close; covering the noise of the shutter, before the train embarks on another leg of its journey. These visual poems highlight the everyday in the extended living room of the U-Bahn.