Anne Solitander
Concreteness

Anne Solitander (architect and visual artist from Denmark) will develop a research project focused on the brutalist architecture of Buenos Aires through photography and photogravure. The exploration of the brutalist world will allow her to continue the overlapping between the two languages ​​- the one of architecture and the one of visual arts- besides knowing our city.

ARTIST STATEMENT

The project consists of a series of photogravure prints that explores brutalist architecture. The project is intended to depict many pieces of brutalist architecture from all over the world, but start out in Buenos Aires – the home to  some of the most fascinating ones.

Notorious for its lack of concern for the specific contexts,  brutalist architecture is more of an expression of the relations between solid and void, the clarity of form and an articulation of materials than geographic location. A certain timelessness and placelessness pervades the buildings  and dissolves the specific locations making the architecture speak of bigger themes than its mere function and what is in its close neighbourhood.

The photogravures serve, moreover, as a great contrast to what they are depicting – the brutalist architecture.

Whereas the architecture is hard, solid and permanent the photogravure prints are more ephemeral, tangible and different every time they are printed.

In my experiments with the printing process I would like to enhance these features of the technique, making the motif sometimes vanish completely and other times appear more clear.

It will be an investigation of the tangible/impermanent versus the permanent and firm. The tangible features of the photograph such as daylight and the materials will merge with results of the tangible print and create a new situation that is not located a specific place, but rather a condition at a certain time.