Like ghosts from our past who are displaced in time, Angelika Rinnhofer’s images are inherently elusive. They act like black ice on a winter road – deceivingly clear yet you need to go slowly in order to connect - otherwise you risk sliding across their slippery surface. Rinnhofer’s sitters appear so familiar, as though we’ve seen images of them countless times before. Yet except for within the moment in which her subjects pose for her, the person we are gazing upon does not exist, the moments and exchanges she frames never truly occurred as we see them depicted. They may suggest someone or something, they may suggest an event, but they never were. In the end they (purposely) generate more questions than offer answers.
Born in Nuremberg, Germany, Rinnhofer grew up surrounded by the confluence of faith, art, and history. She was deeply influenced by the likes of such artists as Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) who lived and worked in Nuremberg in the late 15th century and Caravaggio (1570-1610) whose controversial paintings of Christian icons brought forth realism to holy figures as Jesus and Mary Magdalene (humanizing them with dirty feet and tattered robes) and for openly employing street people and prostitutes as his models. In returning years later as an adult, Rinnhofer found herself amazed by the uniquely Christian and near obsessive depiction of martyrs and saints at the moment of their suffering and their ongoing attachment to the implements of their suffering. Taking a cue from Caravaggio’s own practice, she utilizes hints of modernity and brings them into contact with centuries-old iconic imagery within her portraits of Renaissancesque individuals and religious tableaus, hinging her images to a past in which they don’t belong.
A portrait at its essence is a plane of transference. It depicts something – more often than not, someone – at a moment unavoidably now past (unless perhaps if you’re Dorian Gray) – and preserves it for any who choose to engage it. That viewer who brings to the encounter their own background and perspective, reads the portrait, accepting its various signifiers of meaning as well as invisible histories or ties that perhaps bind them to the subject portrayed. They are simultaneously a fictional creation and a matter of fact.
But what Angelika Rinnhofer wants us to do is side step this prescribed relationship with portraiture in order to consider the implied histories and meanings they offer, in part the who and why. In order to do so, she has created a series of visual collisions in her work that untether her otherwise tightly composed scenes. This is not to say that she takes issue with the aesthetics of the Renaissance. Her photographs reveal a sincere fascination and love for that period and prove her a remarkable disciple. Yet she is not interested in merely emulating the mannerisms of her heroes, rather Rinnhofer takes the approach that in order to bring forward a dialogue surrounding the complexities inherent to representation, we need to invest ourselves near completely in the past while in the present – a practice she derives from the idea that “…Art is the only still unconsumed function that derives from a profoundly historical past but returns as the future, as the totality of self-aware-man.” (Joseph Beuys, 1985)
Menschenkunde
In this series of individual portraits Rinnhofer’s sitters emulate
the appearance of royalty and the elite merchant class. So easily she would
have us convinced of their authenticity if the names attached to each piece
read something like “Alberto Parisi de Napoli, 1589.” They
hold themselves in such confident manner that they seem to nearly challenge
us to not believe they exist. Yet this is all play and imagination. They’re “fronting” their
guise and the longer we look – the more it appears that is nothing
there. Rinnhofer so tempts us to believe that they are that in the end
we are left with doubt – which is right where she wants us. But the
impact isn’t felt until the moment when we come back into contact
with our own image-saturated culture. With Rinnhofer’s photographs
in mind, we become aware of the nature of representation, its fabrication,
and its pratfalls.
Felsenfest
As Rinnhofer writes in her artist statement, “science, like religion,
has had its share of martyrs and saints.” Each has claimed its victims
and had its heroes as they worked to establish themselves as definers to
all of life’s questions and both have vigorously maintained their
unarguable absolutes. Like fraternal twins fighting to deny the other’s
existence, their differences and commonalities are visibly reflected within
the arts (which would be seen as a third sibling whose nature reflects
both the questioning nature of science and the call for absolute faith
of religion). In Felsenfest the worlds of scientific inquiry and faith
collide upon each other. The elation of each saint represented is disrupted
by the inquiring nature of a doctor or scientist. Yet the absolute
devotion of the saint remains contrary and devoid of recognition to the
questions poised before (and of) them. In using the pictorial space of
her images as grounds for debate, Rinnhofer rejects any absolute confirmation
of either party. She reminds us of the necessity for dialogue around the
images our culture creates and consumes.
At this moment the debate over the need for authenticity in photography seems to be leaning towards an “anything goes” attitude, particularly within the fine art world. A growing number of photographers position themselves as “image-makers” and freely digitally alter their photographs without a sense of responsibility to clarify their manipulations to their respective audiences. This debate about manipulation is for certain not new. The growing acceptance may reflect a greater honesty than the field has yet to have with itself.
What it brings rise to, is the growing need for a level of understanding, of visual literacy, which allows us to respect and discern the difference between a photograph and an image. Angelika Rinnhofer’s work seduces us with the promise of insight and knowledge. They elicit our faith for what a portrait (and photography) can offer. But just as she brings us to that brink, Angelika has made sure that that the lush reflective pool she has created is appropriately shallow, and reminds us that there is more there than what is just at the surface.