Aperture Foundation and the Photography Program in the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design present:
Fall 2011 Photography Lecture Series
Florian Maier-Aichen
Tuesday, November 15th
6:30pm
FREE Admission, seating is on first-come, first serve basis
Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th floor
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555
Aperture and the Photography Program in the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design is pleased to present the third lecture of the 2011-2012 Parsons/Aperture Photography Lecture Series with artist Florian Maier-Aichen. Alternately romantic, cerebral, and unearthly, Florian Maier-Aichen’s digitally altered photographs are closer to the realm of drawing, painting, and fiction than documentation. He embraces difficult techniques, chooses equipment that produces accidents such as light leaks and double exposures, and uses computer enhancements to introduce imperfections and illogical elements into images that paradoxically “feel” visually right, though they are factually wrong. Often employing an elevated viewpoint (the objective but haunting “God’s-eye view” of aerial photography and satellite imaging) Maier-Aichen creates idealized, painterly landscapes that function like old postcards. Interested in places where landscape and cityscape meet, he chooses locations and subjects from the American West and Europe – from his own neighborhoods to vistas of the natural world. Looking backwards for his influences, Maier-Aichen often reenacts or pays homage to the work of the pioneer photographers of the 19th century, sometimes even remaking the subject matter from their original standpoint. Always experimenting, he marries digital technology with traditional processes and films (black-and-white, color infrared, and tricolor), restoring and reinvigorating the artistry and alchemy of early photography. Maier-Aichen’s work has been extensively exhibited internationally, and recently appeared in recent major exhibitions at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain (2008); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2007); and the Whitney Biennial (2006). Maier-Aichen lives and works in Cologne, Germany and Los Angeles. He was bron in 1973 in Stuttgart, Germany. He studied at Hogskolan for Fotografi och Film, Goteborg, Sweden; the University of Essen, Germany; and earned an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles.
