Iconic Geography

The photographer duo Scanderbeg Sauer documents stranded attempts to tame and control technology. They have explored places at the edge of civilization where mankind  capitulates and gives up. In aesthetically flawless images they conjured up the resplended past of iconic airplanes that are stored in the desert. And in the new series ‘Chavalon‘ they captured the morbid beauty of our progress and pinpoint towards the loss of control.

Their earliest photographs and influences are the person who deeply shaped their opinion – besides the so-called “Düsseldorf School“ – is a Swiss industrial photographer, Jacob Tuggener. 1943 he has made a book called “factory”. While the Düsseldorf School of photography is very analytical and formal – you’ll find the man behind the work and you’ll find the emotional factor in his photography which is being the key issue.

In all the extreme oddness, you find the extreme beauty. Their idea of Sublime their strength is perhaps to find a beauty – even in the biggest mess.

They can be standing in a scrap yard, in facilities marked for clearance, coal mountains or a sausage factory – there is always a formality to discover and thus fulfill aesthetic requirements without this artificially beautified industrial images would arise. They also think a picture works much better the clearer it is – with the combination of high formality and geometric reduction.

This is certainly an ideal of their photography.

In the 80ies the happy worker has been shot while working at the bench with blue and orange light used. This is something that does not exist in their photography. If a customer wants to show working people in their factory, then we portray people, but we certainly do not put them behind the bench and let them pretend as if they are working. They think our world is honest and that makes it beautiful.

Andreana Scanderbeg (born in Los Angeles, USA) and Alexander Sauer (born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany) are a photographic duo living in Zurich, Switzerland. Since 2005, Scanderbeg and Sauer have produced a body of work that has seen them travel internationally. Through strong, complementary skills the team achieves brilliant end results. Their photographic work is primarily focused on the meeting of the corporate, industrial and personal, all characterized by a unique visual expression and consistent vision. Extremely industrial, extremely loud, extremely dirty, extremely distant locations to most of the people - you can bet that there's where they will be. 

Between the exhibitions realize VOLTA Basel in 2014 and the ongoing BIG DATA (group show) in Zurich.

Camilla Boemio is a writer, independent curator, an university consultant and researcher whose practice deals with investigating the politics of participation in curatorial practices and the intersections between art and technology-science. Boemio co-founded and directed the thematic AAC platform and she is associate curator at APT - Artist Pension Trust.

She was co - Associate Curator of the Maldives Pavilion at 55th International Art Exhibition Venice Biennial and in summer 2014, she was curator of ‘Apprehension Global Society and Contemporary Art on the Twitter Generation’ Symposium, a Parallel Event at 6th Bucharest Biennial. Her writing have appeared in various magazines, publications and catalogues.