LIFE
FORCE
The magazine of the photo-essay
August 2017 back issue
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
by Thomas Wrede
Anywhere is a selection of photographs from the two of Thomas Wrede’s series: Real Landscapes (started in 2005) and
Seascapes (2001-2007. Both bodies of work are intrinsically linked to the landscape of the North Sea coast and to the
Lusatian mining district of eastern Germany.
Wrede is inclined to explore the boundaries between simulation and reality. In the series Real Landscapes, Wrede
reproduces the world as a sort of model kit. Large impact scenes are presented on a very small scale. Images and
replicas vacillate between the idyllic and the catastrophic.
The ideas for his pictures are driven by impulses from the worlds of art and media. The artist uses commonplace objects
for the staging of his pictures. Toy cars and miniature houses taken from a model train kit are placed on beaches, in coal
dumps and on garbage.
With the panoramic landscapes of his Seascapes, the beaches of the German North Sea coast appear on the one hand
as a touristic stage and on the other as a metaphysically charged, infinite natural space in which man, sky, water and
earth meet. The human figures appear to wander around aimlessly across the immense expanse of the beach and the
reflecting void of the shallow water. As we gaze into the distance at the immensity of the horizon, the figures turn into
miniatures strangely disconnected from reality.
Beach Hotel, 2008.
Mud Flats Wanderers, 2001.
High altitude house, 2005.
Tidelands with playful dogs, 2001.
In shallow Water, 2002.
Meadow, 2005.
Skyscrapers in back light, 2008.
Beach Walkers, 2004.
Dari King Drive In, 2007.
In the Fog, 2004.
Football Pitch, 2008.
Walkers on the Beach, 2004.
In the Tertiary Valley, 2008.
Children at the Beach, 2005.
Drive-In Theatre, 2009.
Beach Tents, 2004.
Beach Marsh at Night, 2009.
People laying and playing on the Beach, 2004.
Ice Hole, 2010.
Trees in the Snow, 2010.
