Ralf Peters

Plastische Fotografie

Plastic photography

An exhibition in cooperation with the Städtische Galerie Nordhorn

3 July to 22 August 2004
Kunstverein Grafschaft Bentheim, Neuenhaus

3 July to 8 August 2004
City Gallery Nordhorn, (kunstwegen-Pavillon)

In recent years, Ralf Peters has used ever new approaches to illuminate the criteria of perception of our time in his artistic research. In his digital processing he makes use of "plastic visual material" that promises an apparently faithful image of the world. The series thus created re-expose phenomena of our time. He does not use photography in a documentary way, but rather in an inventive way, skilfully exploiting the power of persuasion inherent in photography. In the digital age, in which the image dominates our perception, Ralf Peters' pictures challenge us to see and understand in a "contemplative" way.
If we look at Ralf Peters' strikingly beautiful pictorial world, we soon get the feeling that something "can't be right" in it.
In fact, Peters today uses the digital versions of all those tricks and knacks that the forefathers of photography used: montage and retouching, changing brightness and shadows and exchanging colors.

"Particularly in his series, this attitude of skepticism, which maintains the distance between the viewer and the pictorial world against its seductive power, is encouraged. For the comparison between the individual pictures in the series only makes the mechanics of the illusion clear that it requires a temporary withdrawal from the pictorial world". "Photographs therefore not only have a documentary function, but also, to a large extent, a projective character. They project their image over reality". (Quotations from the exhibition catalogue: Ralf Peters, Plastic Photography.)

With the kind support of the city of Neuenhaus and the state of Lower Saxony