For his second solo exhibition at Contour Gallery, Rotterdam-based photographer Rubén Dario Kleimeer scoured the fringes of Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Brussels for “everyday, rough places” that he brings together in triptychs. “I want the viewer to forget that they are looking at a blank wall.”
Rubén Dario Kleimeer (Colombia, 1978) studied at the Willem de Kooning Academy, first interior architecture and fine arts. “I started the study with the ambition to become a designer or architect. The lectures on architectural theory and cultural history broadened my view.” For the debate about architecture, you came into your own in Rotterdam at that time. You could visit the NAI, the Berlage Institute, the galleries on the Witte de Withstraat and many architectural firms held open houses. Digital photography was introduced when I was studying photography, but I was taught by old school teachers, so I still learned to operate an analogue technical camera.”He is also an avid skateboarder.
Did your love for architecture start with skateboarding?
Street skaters search the built environment for stairs to get an olliefrom, a railing to slide on or a ledge to grind on. In doing so, you develop a creative view of existing structures. In my previous series, Imaginary Perspectives, I already paid a lot of attention to curved and curved surfaces. Those are, of course, shapes skateboarders are looking for in their subconscious. That's how skateboarding was born. On the days when there were no waves at sea, surfers in California looked for places to simulate the experience of surfing a wave. They ended up at places like the LA River where they skated on concrete ramps. Later in the 1970s, due to drought and water scarcity, empty swimming pools were added. You could regard those curved shapes as the archetypal shapes of skateboarding.
Do you also take your skateboard with you?
No, those are separate worlds. I prefer to work with a large, technical camera from a tripod, which requires my utmost concentration.
In addition to that technical camera, you prefer to work with black-and-white film; what is the advantage of that?
Modern architecture and photography are about the same age, so for me they go hand in hand. My photo images are a kind of ode to architecture. By framing, I emphasize the material and the monumental: the stones, the steel, the wood. In black and white you emphasize the structure of architecture and certain building volumes better. The technical camera allows you to remove perspective distortion.
The typical framing and the absence of people also made me think of the work of the Swedish photographer Gerry Johansson and the non-descript architecture of Lewis Baltz. Have they been sources of inspiration for you?
Yes, I really appreciate their work. The difference between me and Johansson is that he uses a medium format camera and can therefore work more intuitively. More like in street photography. If I find a place with my technical camera, it will take me at least another 20 minutes to compose the image. This appears mirrored and upside down on the frosted glass that you look at under a black cloth. Working with a technical camera is not only time-consuming but also expensive, so you have to work in a very calculated manner. Like the members of the New Topographics movement of which Baltz was a part, I often have an inkling befo-rehand of what I will find in a certain area.
When you talk about your work, you talk about photo objects. Why is that?
A print is a flat surface on paper. My portraits of buildings are almost physical, bulky and monumental. I try to share that physicality with the viewer. I want them to be three-dimensional objects again. Actually, I aspire to create new architecture with the camera.
Your current show The Potential of the Unintentional consists of triptychs. What's the idea behind that?
Like I said, I try to share the physical aspect of the objects I portray with the viewer. This is possible through the format of the photos, or by having them enter into a dialogue with other works, but also by hanging them in a certain way, as is now the case with the triptychs. Therein lies The Potential of the Unintentional. I portray everyday, rough places and excerpts thereof. Sometimes they are constructive elements. By framing them, I take them out of their context and put them in their own setting. By reducing existing structures to a basic form, I want the viewer to forget that he is looking at a blank wall.
In addition to Rotterdam, you also visited Brussels and Amsterdam for The Potential of the Unintentional. Are those places where you can make enough work?
First and foremost, they are close to home, so it is logistically easy to get work done there. This series offers me enough leads to turn it into a kind of grand tour of Europe. I will undoubtedly visit cities like London and Paris, but places like Marseille or Düsseldorf are just as interesting to me. I hope to build up a kind of archive, so that you can hang an image from Copenhagen next to an image from Lisbon, allowing thema to enter into a dialogue. Just like those collections of the Bechers, what they manage to generate in their series is simply unsurpassed in my opinion.