The sun grows cooler in the haze of the fog
Elena Kristofor, Laura Sperl
Turmgalerie Vilshofen
Vilshofen, Germany
2024
A hand, an arm, two legs. A tree, a body – the fog. Elena Kristofors and Laura Sperl’s works depict a body situated in a forest or a room, obscured and enveloped by trees and fog, emerging from it or moving with it. The varying densities of fog create different levels of visibility, at times revealing the body more clearly, at other times suggesting it so subtly that it appears to float in a seemingly airless space.
The collaboration between artists Elena Kristofors and Laura Sperl arose from a shared experience of disorientation in a fog-shrouded forest. The photographs, too, provoke a sense of disorientation, whether through the reversal of perspective or the adoption of unusual postures such as a handstand, which turns the world upside down. Image titles such as Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t or Flying on the Back take up these shifts in perspective. For a brief moment, everything becomes what it is not – How do we view our environment? What position do we occupy within it?
The play with visibility is inherent in the technical processes of analog photography: As a latent, i.e., hidden, image, the image already exists on the carrier medium but must be developed through chemical processes. This takes only a brief moment until what has been photographed is fully visible.
The works by Kristofor and Sperl also reflect this process of revelation. Much like photochemical processes, the fog interventions represent a temporary state that undergoes a transformation in order to reveal something previously hidden. In this way, they offer an opportunity to become aware of the dominance of the visual. The fog interventions taking place in the exhibition are part of the work and invite visitors to experience the images through the fog. They also offer the opportunity to engage with the spatial experience beyond the limitations of the sense of sight. The very title of the exhibition, The Sun Grows Cooler in the Mist, brings the physical experience to the forefront through its effect on the skin. Through the air they breathe and their body heat, the visitors’ bodies also influence the room’s climate and atmosphere.
The idea of interaction and transformation becomes even clearer in the video work Drch Nbl, in which a body moves through wisps of fog in a forest. In contrast to the static photographs, the moving image underscores the body’s embeddedness: as the choreography reacts to the fog, no distance is maintained; instead, body and fog are connected.
Clara Bolin
translated by the artists
