From Miss Rosen’s article for Huck:
Reading the Landscape opens as the Bible does, with the sublime grandeur of nature, before introducing haunting scenes of destruction that suggest a war fought — and lost. Becker concludes with images made in Singapore, where nature is rendered impotent and reimagined as décor.
“We are educated to experience a nature that is a complete invention by human beings,” Becker says. “It is like Disney; it’s not real. There’s an image of a nature trail in the botanical garden, and they arrange the flowers and plants in a way you would never find this combination in nature, but it looks good. They even have speakers where you can listen to the sound of birds. It’s kitsch: overdone and wrong.”
Browse the series “Reading the Landscape” at ClampArt
Browse all of Olaf Otto Becker’s work at ClampArt