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Raimo Lielbriedis “Black & White Stop”

3.7.2010 - 1.8.2010

During Programme No. 13, 3 July until 1 August, 2010, photographer Raimo Lielbriedis’ exhibition “Black & White Stop” at the Kim? / FK Gallery. The exhibition showcases a selection of black and white photographs taken over a period of several years; the prints of the photographs have been made only this year specially for “The Black & White Stop” at Kim?.

“In order to be able to move forward sometimes a stop is needed. Especially if the movement trajectory starts to resemble a circle. I’m not planning to have a career change; however, it is time to choose the catalysts of movement necessary for development, to find sources of new energy. My accomplishments in the field of black and white photography grants me the possibility – all I need to do is pause and think it through,” says photographer and pedagogue Raimo Lielbriedis. All the exhibited works have been digitally printed (giclée print) from traditionally made black and white negatives using a range of high quality materials. The development of digital print technologies allows endowing completely new qualities to an existing image material preserving the attitude towards the stability of the original both technically and visually.

The exhibition will present works of highest technical standards, purity of style and refined black and white aesthetics intrinsic to all Raimo Lielbriedis’ works. Works are mostly in the landscape genre. Art historian Aira Dzalbe, commenting on Raimo Lielbriedis works, writes, “The artist’s principle is to leave enough space for the viewer’s perception; nevertheless, to his mind, a landscape can also be purely decorative (if photographs adorn walls, for example). In his landscapes, there are no stories, no concepts, no notion of the epoch (that photodocumentalists pay particular attention to). They are documentary only in the sense that they allow recognizing the actual places which are also decoded in the laconic titles of the works. The collection rests upon proportions found in nature, i.e., formal things, it does not rest upon revelations of the character of a place or nature’s mood, for example. (..) The things he sees and the things that evoke his photographic interest are planar constructions, rhythms. To him a place holds no significance; however, the feeling does – slightly contemplative, nostalgic in Tarkovskyian sense.” (Dzalbe, A.  Master among People and Cameras. Foto Kvartāls, Nr. 3(23), 2010, 60.lpp.)

Raimo Lielbriedis (1962) is a photographer and photography teacher at Janis Rozentāls Riga Art School. He is an authority on black and white analogue photo-technologies, the author of the popular book “How to Photograph?” (Neputns, 2008). He has published numerous articles on esthetical and technological aspects of black and white photography in art periodicals.