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• Christel Käßmann
Christel Käßmann
"Relics", "Still Life", "Vanitas", "Stillleben". Admonitory images. Thoughts of life and death. Transience. Shuddering, awe-inspiring, oppressive. Although at first glance, the photographic images from Christiane Monz's still life series might evoke similar associations, it is actually different.
Through her meticulous composition, Christiane Monz has achieved a nearly solemn presentation of simple, plain everyday objects. Their frontal orientation quietly but compellingly engages in an immediate dialogue with the viewer.
Everyday objects, released from their original purpose, divested of their function, laid aside, dust-covered, forgotten. Temporality clings to them naturally, as does the question of whom or what they served.
Once again, through composition, they receive a new, altered "character," free from their original purpose. They become carriers, symbols of simplicity, beauty, and grace, even through their simple, plain form.
Christiane Monz has taken them out of their "no longer useful" state. Through her fundamentally unique perspective and compositional approach, she gave the objects new meaningfulness. The "admonitory" does not cling to them at all.
These are compositions that serve the contemplation and enjoyment of beauty. The craft medium of photography was absolutely rightly employed here as well, namely, to extract and preserve things from the real environment.
Christel M.E. Käßmann
Lecturer in Fine Arts
Department of Artistic Photography
Wiesbadener Freie Kunstschule 01-2019
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