Jan von Holleben – Kosmos

Little Steidl 2017

Jan von Holleben’s idiosyncratic images have become part of the contemporary German photographic imagination. He constructed this ‘Kosmos’ of six planets with little more than a box of props, a team of willing helpers, some clippings from the garden, and his camera. Without any digital manipulation, strange things happen before the camera: ghosts flash through the Berlin cityscape, plants cast shadows on the sky, many places appear in the same place at once, and monsters imitate flowers. Each planet is an optical riddle, and the only clues Von Holleben leaves us are visual ones. This original printed work encompasses six variably sized books in a portfolio box.