Juxtapositions, Encounters

“Juxtapositions” is what Michael Hannwacker calls this series of works, in which two photographs meet, seemingly by chance. Fine gaps establish that the pictures are to be seen together but do not belong together. They enter into a relationship with each other. Yet they retain their autonomy.

Hannwacker finds the motifs for his series in his vast image archive, built up on countless journeys. Mostly, but not exclusively, he searches within individual bodies of work – Tangier, say, Saudi Arabia or Memphis – and the viewer may sense that a geographical proximity nourishes the pairs. Then he may recognise formal connections or related colours. Soon he sees the juxtapositions as pairs that are hard to separate again. Also because they meet not only on the surface.

For research into the subjects of the pictures reveals that the images also enter into unsuspected relationships in terms of content. These become comprehensible through texts that Hannwacker assigns to the “Juxtapositions”, giving the series a second level.