“Man-Made Wonders” by Monna Mönnig, courtesy The Goethe Institut

Written by DCist contributor Pat Padua

“In the age of Flickr & Co., photography as purely an illustration of reality is becoming less important.” This statement is made in a curatorial note for Gute Aussichten, an exhibit of New German Photography at The Goethe Institut, and you might wonder what that exactly means. The Flickr revolution has for some democratized photography and for others cheapened it. A smart phone in every pocket means a camera in every pocket, which results in, for better or worse, an aesthetic of the spontaneous. The young photographers featured in Gute Aussichten work against this trend, also for better or worse, taking the time to create “arrangements, productions and modelling as a ‘pictorial illusion,’ sounding out and exploring the possibilities within the medium of photography.” Interestingly, the most successful of these may be the most traditional.

Shigeru Takato‘s small-scale landscapes are presented as triptychs, and the modest, dead-pan arrangement reminds one of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s Typologies. Sonia Kalberer‘s large scale C-prints lead you into what seem like abandoned warehouses until you pick out, from the dimly lit spaces, meticulously arranged constructions that take after the abstract expressionists.

The Container series by Anna Simone Wallinger is one of the few socially conscious approaches in the show. Wallinger observes asylum seekers housed in container-like spaces just outside Berlin. The photographer took photos from the same vantage point at half-hour intervals over a twelve-hour period. In some sequences, family life goes on, while others appear listless – one hulking subject appears to be banging his head against the wall. While the more colorfully decorated containers appear livelier, the more care afforded to these spaces also may be a sad indication of a longer wait.