In the middle of life we ​​are surrounded by death, want to preserve and yet have to let go.

This exciting contrast has long fascinated the Danish photo artist Torben Eskerod (born 1960), which is why quite a few of his series deal with the transience that people in many places would like to encounter with memory.

An example of this are the photographic portraits that adorn countless tombs in Rome's largest cemetery, Campo Verano.

They are often photographs that show the deceased at a young age, i.e. well before their death.

They are reminiscent of the heyday of the years and, in a figurative sense, show the decline, because the photographs themselves are exposed to the weather and become creased, cracked, wrinkled.

Eskerod himself photographed some of these tombstone portraits between 2001 and 2008 and printed them in large format.

In doing so, he has preserved the decay for a moment, but of course he cannot stop it, which also applies to the motifs of the "Flowers" series from 2017.

Here Eskerod has focused on plastic grave flowers, objects that also decompose over time.

Christian Riethmuller

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Two of the photographer's most fascinating series, which came into being on the one hand by chance and on the other by an accident, show that dealing with transience can find expression not only in motifs but also in the working material.

While out for a walk in the woods, Eskerod had run out of film for his 35mm camera and went to a kiosk to buy more.

However, this roll of film had long expired and was probably not stored properly either, which resulted in unbelievable color effects when printed.

Eskerod bought more of this material, which had actually become unusable, and used it to photograph the series “Marselis” (2003), which shows trees in the fog of the Marselisborg Forest.

The defective color film transfigures the sceneries, which, depending on the mood, seem like dream or nightmare scenes, suggesting heavenly peace or dead silence.

The other series, called Damaged Portraits, dates from 2011 and stems from annoying water damage that destroyed large parts of Eskerod's work, which was stored in a basement in Copenhagen.

Among them was a thirteen-part series of portraits that had been decomposed by the water and had gone moldy.

Eskerod photographed these damaged prints again and thus preserved a moment of decay that is far from over.

The white horse continues to work and changes the motifs and thus also the faces of those portrayed.

If they reveal undreamt-of secrets in this way, that is only in the spirit of Eskerod, who is interested in the depths behind the surface in both his artistic and his scientific-documentary work, "to emphasize the power of what is not complete seen, known, or represented,” he says.

It is no coincidence that the photographer is interested in faith, be it spiritual or spiritistic, as shown by the magnificent portraits of elderly deaconesses, but also of healers or hypnotists in the moment of practicing their profession.

All in all, the show curated by Alison Nordström in the Fotografie Forum presents 140 color and black-and-white photographs from a total of 21 series of works, which demonstrate the immensely broad spectrum of Torben Eskerod, who works analogously and digitally, uses small, medium and large formats and confidently somnambulists between commercial and artistic photography changes.

The much sought-after Dane earns his money as an architectural photographer, but he is not only interested in surfaces, as the series "Can Lis" (2011) about a special house on Mallorca shows.

It was designed for himself by Jørn Oberg Utzon, the famous architect of the Sydney Opera House. Eskerod wanted this building not only to depict, but rather to find a way to its builder and his artistic spirit.

In addition to his commissions, Eskerod has also been doing voluntary work in Brazil for many years, where he and an anthropologist document the lives of people who have been rejected by society because of physical or mental disabilities and who live in a remote community.

The shots that were taken there are documentary photography in the best sense, but seen with an eye that seeks depth and wants to look behind the facade.

THE EXHIBITION “Findings” runs until March 6, 2022 at the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, Braubachstr.

30-32, see.

Opening hours: Tue to Sun 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Information on the visiting rules at www.fffrankfurt.org