Jochen Klein

The Romance of Contraband (After Ansel Adams) 2008


Untitled 1 (Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941), 2008
Gelatin silver print, 25,4 cm X 19,9 cm

We might say that this capacity of objects to serve as traces of authentic experience is, in fact, exemplified by the souvenir. The souvenir distinguishes experience. We do not need or desire souvenirs of events that are repeatable. Rather we need and desire souvenirs of events that are reportable, events whose materiality has escaped us, events that thereby exist only through the invention of narrative. Through narrative the souvenir substitutes a context of perpetual consumption for its context of origin. It represents not the lived experience of its maker but the ´secondhand` experience of its possessor/owner. Like the collection, it always displays the romance of contraband, for its scandal is its removal from its ´natural` location.

Susan Stewart

Within The Romance of Contraband (After Ansel Adams) and throughout my artistic practice I am interested in the perception of, and expectation towards, places and the possibility, or impossibility, of an authentic relationship with nature. A recurring idea within my work is the notion of the souvenir, which, like the photograph, is a fragment, a partial and incomplete representation of a specific experience in another medium. This weakness of the photograph is also its strength and its success, and in this context I view photography as a powerful medium to explore possibilities and levels of experience and authenticity.

Jochen Klein, September 2008

Untitled 2 (Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California, 1960), 2008
Gelatin silver print, 12,7 cm X 16,5 cm



Untitled 3 (Moonrise from Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, California, c. 1959), 2008 Gelatin silver print, 30,3 cm X 22,9 cm



Untitled 4 (Autumn Moon, High Sierra from Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, California, 1948), 2008
Gelatin silver print, 30,3 cm X 24 cm

Tabletop 2007


Untitled 1, 2007
C type photograph, 40 cm X 50 cm



Untitled 2, 2007
C type photograph, 50 cm X 40 cm



Untitled 3, 2007
C type photograph, 50 cm X 40 cm



Untitled 4, 2007
C type photograph, 40 cm X 50 cm