acoolsha
Photography
Robert Häusser 24 April 05
Section: photography
Categories: Exhibition / museum
There were hundreds of photos and I appreciated the entire exhibition. I had heard his name and some of the photos were familiar. Häusser comes across as a good, clear person and photographer, and his photographs are unpretentious and diverse with a continuity that flows just from his having done them.
He rarely photographs people. According to him, this can be traced back to his childhood under the Nazis, when his father, an opponent of the Nazis, was arrested and he and his family were traumatized and stigmatized. He had an early affinity for photography but he hid his interest from other people. With his father gone they had virtually no means of support and he couldn’t afford a camera — but he started making photographs with a camera obscura. In fact, some of these early childhood photographs were the ones that were most familiar to me.
What comes through for me in his work is humility and respect, respect for what he sees, respect for his own perception and the ability and desire to make it concrete through photography. He respects the paper he uses, letting it be part of the photograph as more than just the support: the white or off-white quality radiates, playing an equal role. I particularly liked some of his snow photographs and photographs like the one linked to below.
www.artists-net.info/robert-haeusser.
Museum: Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum
City: Mannheim, Germany