Passerwasser
Landscape and portrait are two of photographers’ favorite topics. One allows you to work outdoors in search of details that reserve satisfaction for the curious and attentive eyes of the most sensitive photographers regardless of what others may see. The other enables one to work calmly in the studio on selected objects.
Two very different ways of working explored by many, but almost always with the same results. There are very few authors who can boast excellent results in both genres and critics do not generally like those who transgress the various fields of photography. Andreas Zipperle focuses on landscape by placing importance on a subject as ancient as creation: the river.
I gave the portfolio that was presented to me the title “A river and its surroundings ” even though the original title in German was and still is a curious pun relating to the name of the river near Merano: “Passerwasser”.
The work comprises 28 images in B&W beautifully printed from 6 x 6 negatives and is special because of this simple narrative idea:
follow the path of the river, almost untouched by pollution (thanks to its geographical location) in search of beauty, peace and tranquility.
However, as the author soon points out, everything is not in fact as it appears in the photographs. The destructive attempts of modern man are evident in the constructions set up to determine the course of the water.
For Andreas Zipperle water ways were always sought after. His own childhood gave him the privilege to experience the beauty of nature which still manages to survive today. The course of the river has been clearly described without artifice as well as the rocks and trees that frame it. He favours the natural beauty of places with simplicity and descriptive naturalness found on long walks.
This simplicity is the best quality of this young author’s vision.
In a world of photography, where the merger of the most curious and anomalous things must be staged, there are still clean authors who use the camera in a simple and descriptive way to narrate minimal facts and emotions.
Real proof of seriousness and ability to synthesize, without overdoing it, in the immediate conquest of an empty place in the sun in the panorama of young Italian photography.
Who has ears to hear, hears!
Ken Damy
Ken Damy Museum of Contemporary Photography, Brescia 1992
South Tyrol, Italy
1989 – 1992
28 B/W photos
Silver Gelatin Prints
Open edition
Signed by hand
32 x 32 cm (12.6 x 12.6 “)
