The structures, processes and principles of life are reflected in an astonishingly similar manner on the smallest as well as the grandest of scales. In his work, Danish photographer Nicolai Howalt (b. 1970) seeks to establish connections with science and its history. His aesthetic approach also raises existential questions about our role in an interconnected world.
The exhibition is centred around four more recent, related series of works: stripped of any sense of scale, the view out into the cosmos resembles that into a petri dish – and vice versa. As physical photographs, digital visual data from Mars take on a familiar expression (A Journey: The Near Future) while photograms of fungal spores look like galaxies (F.U.N.G.I.). With a wide range of expressions Howalt repeats the same motif on aged photographic papers, depicting the world’s oldest living tree, whose roots are simultaneously dependent upon and vulnerable to fungal systems (Old Tjikko). He also turns his camera to the sun. By using historical lenses and the interplay between intentionality and chance, he visualises what is normally invisible to the human eye (Light Break).
Nicolai Howalt graduated from Fatamorgana, a Danish school for fine-art photography in Copenhagen. His experimental series explore the boundaries of his medium. The exhibition is a collaboration with Martin Asbæk Gallery, Copenhagen, and Galerie Maria Lund, Paris.
A catalogue is available in German and English.
