Reinhard Görner
Biblioteca Ortopedica, Bologna, Italy
2022

Name: Biblioteca Ortopedica, Bologna, Italy
Brand: Reinhard Görner
Price: 6000 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Biblioteca Ortopedica Bologna, Italy 2022 A view of the main table and globe of the main scientific library in the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli, named for Italian King Umberto I. The vista is framed between echoing frescoed arched ceilings, cases of scientific volumes, and geometric floor. These sixteenth-century rooms, where the books of the Olivetani Monks were kept, are located in the ancient complex of San Michele in Bosco. They were transformed into an orthopaedic hospital at the end of the nineteenth century. The library holds an important scientific collection of books and scientific magazines about orthopedics and related subjects. signed and numbered on label, verso Reinhard Görner records cultural and industrial heritage through his series of photographs depicting contemporary and historical architecture, landscapes, parks, and plants. Best known for his photographs of libraries and reading rooms from around the world—in works such as George Peabody Library II, Baltimore (2017) and Riggs Library I, Washington DC (2017)—Görner captures the atmosphere of absolute silence and concentration the spaces embody while also revealing their almost cathedral-like sense of grandeur. Görner’s images have a vivid sense of depth and dimension that convey an impression of intimacy, as in Isaac Newton, Cambridge (2017), or monumentality via his precise and skilful use of framing and perspective. Reinhard Görner, with his large format photographs orchestrates the monumentality of rooms. An active architecture photographer since 1985, is a master of perspectives and precise spatial compositions, and he thus considers classical sculpture, in all of its possible facets, a special challenge. "Görner’s photographs sometimes open the doors to another world and take the viewer with them on a journey through time. Here the palace is no longer a museum but both royal residence and a site steeped in history. The viewer does not have to share the halls with the masses of visitors; instead the images offer him exclusive impressions of the Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors) and the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles) as even the king of France was probably never granted. The halls are empty of people, yet they seem to be able to unfurl their individual characters of their own accord. These places practically breathe history, and this aspect is also part of the essence captured in the photographs. King Wilhelm of Prussia was named German Emperor Wilhelm I in the Hall of Mirrors after France was defeated in 1870–1871 in the Franco-German War. The Treaty of Versailles following World War I was also signed there in 1919. In this sense, the architectural photographs of Versailles’s ceremonial rooms have an edge on Renaissance paintings; here even a sense of world history arises within the viewer – one which continues to exert an influence today." Horst Klöver

Creator:

Reinhard Görner (1950, German)

Creation Year:

2022

Dimensions:

Height: 50 in (127 cm)Width: 62.5 in (158.75 cm)

More Editions & Sizes:

50 x 62.5 inchesPrice: $6,00060 x 75 inchesPrice: $9,00070 x 87.5 inchesPrice: $11,000

Medium:

C Print,Lambda

Movement & Style:

Conceptual

Period:

2010-

Framing:

Framing Options Available

Condition:

Gallery Location:

Los Angeles, CA

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU14811541962

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Reinhard Görner

Libraries are both shelters and places of escape. It is this feeling that German photographer Reinhard Görner has been exploring for many years, in search of the most beautiful and solemn reading rooms around the world. Intimate libraries nestled in the heart of secluded abbeys or grandiose halls of prestigious universities, for the German artist, these rooms are an inexhaustible reservoir of inspiration. Let yourself be transported through architectures, styles and eras in this portrait of Reinhard Görner, a self-taught artist with a multifaceted and contagious passion. As an architectural photographer, Reinhard worked for many years for architects before deciding to focus on his passion. His goal is to explore how the great masters of architecture have created spaces that breathe beauty and silence by playing with shadows, light, proportions, rhythms. He quickly discovered that libraries have always been and still are wonderful playgrounds for architects, allowing them to focus on the question of form and emptiness: "I see myself as an ambassador trying to convey the spirit of these builders with my photographic means". The artist photographed and fell in love with his first library in 2005, as he was working with architect Sir Norman Foster and captured the philological library of Berlin’s Frei Universität. Since then, the cathedral-like atmosphere of New York’s Rose main reading room made a long-lasting impact on the artist and he started to intensify his documentation of libraries across the world. Görner’s photographs seek to convey the impact architecture has on our awareness of life : the libraries he captures open spaces, tell stories and refer to a time when one’s sense of aestethics and sense of space were identical. Görner’s photos refer to the vastness great architecture has been celebrating throughout history, bringing to mind historical periods where beauty and tranquility meet. His work pays a tribute to the Becher art school. Like other disciples’ – Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff and Candida Höfer – Görner’s work is strictly conceptual, combined with a fine technical approach. All their works demonstrate the same fascination for typology and record the heritage of the western cultural and industrial past.