An Argentine-German photographer’s online exhibition spotlights his reflections on the natural world, to which he turned during the pandemic
Gerardo Korn art
During the beginning of the lockdown last year, Argentine-German artist and photographer Gerardo Korn, like most, took recourse in his immediate environment. A new awareness led him to truly discover the regions that he had lived in all his life and that held within them the promise of revival. Instead of seeing the pandemic as a limitation, “I found that taking a break from my long and tiring walks and photographic explorations around the big city was doing me good and that it gave added value and new challenges to my photographic work,” the Buenos Aires-based artist tells us. The results of this deep introspection can now be seen in the virtual photography exhibition titled To Seek is to Find, presented by Cosmic Heart Gallery in collaboration with BPW International, BPW South Mumbai, Consulate of Argentina in Mumbai and Africa Business Council.
ADVERTISEMENT
On display at the exhibition is a series titled Autumn is Beginning to Show its Face, shot in the first autumn after the lockdown, and comprising bleak, gritty images accented by the use of golden sepia tones, to highlight what the artist saw as an immediate connection between nature and the sudden melancholy that people were feeling.
Another, titled Small Worlds, seeks the smaller units in nature that combine to form complex forms, noting the way everything in nature mimics patterns in our everyday life. There are photographs that reveal the raw beauty of the land that feeds people as the artist explores a crisis in the agricultural industry of Argentina, contemplating the relations between the drought, people and nature. There are also those that expose nature’s juxtapositions and reassure in their sense of balance, as between that of the thorny cactus stem and the plant’s soft blooming flower. The themes developed a dynamic of their own, says Korn, who felt equally motivated by Cosmic Heart Gallery’s Jalpa H Vithalani’s spirituality and her resolve to curate an exhibition on nature at a time when the planet was reclaiming its home. At the same time, the work helped him “confirm that nature is the greatest artist and that I must live up to and honour it”.
Gerardo Korn
The pandemic brought us closer to an understanding of the interdependency between man and nature that the series too spotlights. As we now emerge from it, does the photographer see this relationship altering again? “Personally I’m an optimist,” he says, “but as far as the world is concerned I’m somewhat skeptical, so I think that this relationship will be altered again.” And yet, he reminds of the aphorism “ars longa, vita brevis”, “hoping that some of the knowledge, wisdom and insight that the situation may have awakened in us will last in time”.
WHAT: To Seek is To Find
WHEN: Till end December
WHERE: https://www.cosmicheart gallery.info/artists/GK/Nature-Series/gerardokorn.html
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
