A reference to the viewpoint adopted is already encapsulated in the title of the Supervision series featuring uninhabited interiors of prefabricated public housing typical of East European countries. All identical in terms of layout, the individual flats are deserted but still retain traces of the furnishing and presence of their former occupants. The peculiarity of these images lies in their overhead viewpoint, which shows us the rooms as though they had no ceiling, thus presenting an unreal and almost disorienting vision that clashes with the normal way of seeing a place. The camera seems to move like a satellite above the objects and spaces portrayed and the result is a disconcerting sort of mapping effect.
Gefeller’s works are not single-shot photographs. The images are the result of a long process whereby the space is mapped out and the artist goes through the places he intends to photograph step by step, section by section. Attached to the artist’s body with a rod, the camera is held two metres above the ground and a shot is taken in each position as though in a scanning procedure. The results are then stitched together digitally as a photographic collage. A single work can comprise as many as 2,500 different individual photographs. Close observation makes it possible to identify the joins at the walls and thus reveals the process involved in its creation.
The constantly reiterated action of taking photographs during this process contains within itself an aspect that could almost be described as contemplative. The repetition of the same act and the physical and corporeal nature of the operation constitute an element of caesura with respect to the traditional distance characterizing the photographer’s work. It is possible to detect the traces left by the artist on moving through the space in some of the images. In Sieberei (Sifting), for example, the footprints in the coal dust bear witness to the temporal dimension directly involved in his work. In addition to a recasting of spatial perception within the photograph, Gefeller therefore develops a reappraisal of time as a prerequisite for image creation that goes against the trend towards ever-greater speed in modern photographic techniques.

Andreas Gefeller (Germany, 1970)

Andreas Gefeller seeks to develop a new way of looking at reality with his large and richly detailed images. Often addressing subjects typical of contemporary photography, such as the urban landscape, vast empty spaces and the human traces imprinted upon them, the German artist achieves this goal not by manipulating the object to be portrayed but by excogitating a strategy for its representation in a new and almost “impossible” way.