eyes on: Rahs - Pictures without concept

Pictures without concept
ausstellungsraum.at
Donnerstag, 4. November 2010

Eduard Rahs conceives on a small scale: pigment, mixed with alcohol, applied with a pointed brush, distributed, or dripped onto a transparent sheet, not exceeding an area of 9 by 6 cm (3.5” by 2.4”). The result, taken as a photonegative, is enlarged onto photographic paper. The results are abstract creations as photographic prints. The process is photographic in nature in another respect as well: just as the photographer does not perceive every single detail that is in front of his lens, the artist who paints cannot tell what will be reflected in the positive.

Painting with photography? Photography with painting? Rahs’s method is not yet described by its own concept. It distantly resembles cliché verre, a process that has been known since the mid-nineteenth century: the artist etches a drawing into a pane of glass coated with soot; in the subsequent photographic copy or enlargement, the plate is inverted to create a positive. Art, one might say, takes a photographic turn.