Wiebke Loeper - Welcome home - Fotografie

Wiebke Loeper - Welcome home
Photography

Wiebke Loeper's works are explorations into identity, traces
of life, autobiographical marks. The present is contrasted
with the past. The artist goes into the interior of places that
are expressions of lived hope, loss and joy.

For Loeper the work Sanseveria represents an important
starting point for her explorations and her way of making
images. The photographs are taken with an automatic small
format camera dating from the early 90s. The black and
white works show views and details of places that speak of
unfulfilled dreams.

Welcome home originated in 2006 during Loeper's
residency at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. The photographs
were exhibited for the first time in 2008 in the photography
collection of the Stadtmuseum München. What relevance
can a work that was made seven years ago and 9400
kilometers away in a different culture have for
contemporary Berlin?

Houses promise safety and security.

During her three months in L.A. Loeper documented the
contents of the homes listed in the Los Angeles Times
weekly real estate section. Loeper surreptitiously
photographed the homes for sale, whose owners who had
abandoned their furnished spaces for the duration of real
estate open houses. The Welcome home series arises from
a fascination with a certain aura and atmosphere and a
search for a sense of home, informed by socialization. The
work functions on two levels. Reproductions of photographs
of the houses taken from the LA Times, newspaper-style
prints, hang unframed and directly on the wall. In contrast
Leoper's photographs possess precise clarity, their intimacy
protected by glass. Welcome home shows the state of a
society. The ads suggest the fulfillment of dreams and play
with potential rise in market value, with the image, with
the address of a place. The photographed interior lacks the
feeling of a protective function; it appears almost
substitutable. The work mirrors a society, which in its
homelessness is, in many ways, like a modern nomadism
that has subjugated itself to the fluidity of nomadic capital.
The work brings to light the contradictions between the
desire for security and an illusory longing for privacy, which
remains unfulfilled - the line between the display of social
status, financial profit and a traditional home.

Welcome home has arrived in berlin.