Olaf Otto Becker. Above Zero

MARCOROSSI artecontemporanea is happy to present a special preview in Milan, and simultaneously in its Verona gallery, of the solo show Above Zero by German photographer Olaf Otto Becker.
 
Becker is a refined traveller with a talent for representing the remotest, wildest corners of the globe. e He documents the visible traces and consequences of the human influence on landscape, addressing complex scientific, political and artistic issues in his ideological analysis. Following his award-winning photographs of the breath-taking coast of Greenland in the Broken Line cycle (2003-2004), Olaf Otto Becker turns his attention to the inland part of the island in the Above Zero series, taken in 2007-2008. The photographer’s second project in Greenland becomes an adventurous trek over unknown glaciers, documenting the routes of newly formed glacial rivers.
 
Greenland has the world’s thickest layer of continental ice after the Antarctic. Becker’s spectacular portraits of the region are taken with a large camera that he carries with him on his physically exhausting treks over the ice, through the hazards of glacial crevices and snow-covered flows. His photographic studies reveal the amazing beauty of this unique landscape while documenting the threat to its existence, for human actions have fatal consequences even in this entirely uninhabited region. Dust and ash in the air form crusty black deposits which combine with the effects of global warming to accelerate the melting of layers of ice, with inevitably catastrophic results.
 
A total of 27 colour photos, archival pigment prints on Hahnemuhle paper, exhibited in the two galleries (including a diptych and two portfolios of 17 and 18 images), document the progressive melting of the ice and the birth of new flows of ultra-pure water. As in an experimental scientific set, each image is accompanied by GPS geolocalisation data mapping the route of four long glacial rivers and revealing the extreme nature of Becker’s undertaking. 
 
Becker’s photography represents a return to the intrepid landscape photography of the 19th century. Like Muybridge, Watkins and O'Sullivan before him, for almost thirty years Becker has been packing his big 8 × 10 inch camera into the earth’s wildest natural environments, unexplored and often hazardous, capturing their true glory. His images often have a formal yet profoundly contemplative and lyrical impact.

+ SPECIAL OPENING DAY + 
attended by the artist, all day on Saturday, 
November 25 from 11 am to 7 pm

+ EXTRA OPENING HOURS +
Sunday, November 26 the gallery 
will be open from 11 am to 7 pm

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