REALISED PROJECT / INSTALLATIONFOTO WIEN · 2023

THE IMAGE AND
ITS OVERWRITING

Two bodies of work examine the authority of photographic representation through layering, interruption and material deterioration.

Installation view of le fantôme afrique at FOTO WIEN 2023 — le fantôme afrique · installation view · FOTO WIEN · STADTRAUM, Vienna · 2023Photo: Foto Wien — Hannes Böck

CONCEPT

Im Maskenland der Dogon — eine Überschreibung and Le fantôme Afrique address the authority of photographic representation. Historical ethnographic images and Kleinlercher's own travel photographs become surfaces on which visibility, framing and interpretation are contested.

The relationship between the two series is deliberately self-critical. The artist's journey through West Africa in 1991 followed an earlier ethnographic itinerary; his photographs and writing also selected, framed and interpreted. Overwriting cannot undo that history, but it can make the difficulty of looking and speaking from this position tangible.

Material loss within a photograph is treated as a metaphorical relation, not as evidence of the disappearance of a culture. The works ask whether obstruction can interrupt an appropriating gaze—or whether it risks obscuring the people represented once again.

COLLAGE SERIES / 2020

IM MASKENLAND DER DOGON
— EINE ÜBERSCHREIBUNG

Photographs by Marcel Griaule, reproduced in the Qumran editions Dogon — Orte des Lebens and Dogon — Masken, are interrupted by layered mask forms, photographic fragments and passages from Kleinlercher's 1991 travel account. The source image remains visible, while its claim to transparent knowledge becomes unstable.

Yageme, a collage from Im Maskenland der Dogon — eine Überschreibung — Yageme · 2020 · collage on corrugated cardboard · 21 × 15 cm

Dama Maske Antilope, a collage from Im Maskenland der Dogon — eine Überschreibung — Dama-Maske_Antilope · 2020 · collage on corrugated cardboard · 15 × 21 cm

Historical source photographs: Marcel Griaule. The historical terms retained in the work titles identify the artist's archive; they are not presented as definitive ethnographic descriptions.

PHOTOGRAPHIC SERIES / 1991–2023

LE FANTÔME
AFRIQUE

Photographs made during the 1991 journey were brought back into view after approximately two decades. Fungal growth and damage to the slides were accepted as part of the work. Representation and its dissolution now occupy the same photographic surface.