April 24, 2024
The Space Between Memory and Expectation
Renate Aller
internationally celebrated photographer, author
The Space Between Memory and Expectation
Renate Aller
internationally celebrated photographer, author
Minutes of the 27th Meeting of the 82nd Year
President John Cotton called the meeting to order.
There were three guests: Stanley Corngold brought Regine Schmidt-Üllner Corngold, Marge D’Amico brought Caroline Sharp, and John Kelsey brought Pam Kelsey.
Henry Von Kohorn read the minutes of the previous meeting.
A moment of silence was observed in memory of member George A. Vaughn III.
Richard Trenner introduced the speaker, world class photographer and longtime friend, Renate Aller. Renate was born and raised in Germany. With her family, she traveled a great deal, frequently to the Alps with its glorious scenery. Trenner explained that Aller has an enormous talent for living and a passionate devotion to creating art. She graduated from what is now the University of London and was recognized very quickly for her talent with an exhibit in Brazil. Her reputation quickly grew. Today she has works of her breathtaking landscapes in museums in several countries and all over the US.
Renate Aller began her talk with a brief set of anecdotes, coupled with photographs, illustrating her unique childhood and her subsequent path to a career in photography.
Renate explained early in her talk that all her art “comes alive” only with a viewer in the room. “I take my own ego out of the work and hand it over to the spectator,” she said. “The spectator has a conversation with the art work.”
The context is relevant in her immersive landscapes. She frequently hangs photographs of different sites quite close to one another in what she characterized as “picture windows.” They may have been taken at different sites, but they seem to hang well together. “Look,” she says, “take a breath; look again.” Such is the “immersive room experience.” She demonstrated with a stunning pair of large dune photographs. They seemed to be different shots of the same landscape, but in fact they were taken far apart. “They carry each other’s memories,” said Aller. They are “bound by their separateness.”
She spoke often of the importance of the space between two photographs. She told an anecdote about a discussion with an exhibit curator who wanted her massive landscapes spaced six inches apart, but Renate was adamant. They should be nine inches apart. The stillness in the space between the two landscapes she equated to “The Space between Memory and Expectation,” the title of her presentation and also of several of her exhibitions: what you remember having seen and what you anticipate seeing next. She also asked that there be no benches in the exhibit. She wanted the viewer to be actively engaged in the art before him or herself.
It became clear that creating the photographs was one part of her art. Pairing them and hanging them in a particular order was a totally different part of that creativity. She was not just showing beautiful landscape photographs but pairing them intentionally together to energize that space between Memory and Expectation. She described arranging all the photographs from a particular shoot on the floor, much like a story board, and re-arranging them until she was happy with the pattern of viewing she had created. She frequently used the word “intention” in describing her art. Nothing is happenstance. All, ultimately, is intended.
Brief answers to a number of questions included 1) Equipment doesn’t matter. You can take a soulless photograph with the finest camera; 2) She never crops a photo. All “cropping” is done in the composing of a photo and 3) She prefers black and white to color and sometimes deliberately mixes warm tones with cool tones. “I love the hazy, overcast moments.”
As Richard Trenner said in his introduction, Renate Aller clearly has brought a passionate devotion to creating art.
Respectfully submitted,
Julie Denny
There were three guests: Stanley Corngold brought Regine Schmidt-Üllner Corngold, Marge D’Amico brought Caroline Sharp, and John Kelsey brought Pam Kelsey.
Henry Von Kohorn read the minutes of the previous meeting.
A moment of silence was observed in memory of member George A. Vaughn III.
Richard Trenner introduced the speaker, world class photographer and longtime friend, Renate Aller. Renate was born and raised in Germany. With her family, she traveled a great deal, frequently to the Alps with its glorious scenery. Trenner explained that Aller has an enormous talent for living and a passionate devotion to creating art. She graduated from what is now the University of London and was recognized very quickly for her talent with an exhibit in Brazil. Her reputation quickly grew. Today she has works of her breathtaking landscapes in museums in several countries and all over the US.
Renate Aller began her talk with a brief set of anecdotes, coupled with photographs, illustrating her unique childhood and her subsequent path to a career in photography.
- A photo of family at the beach, carefully composed by a detail-oriented father. Aller is shown following in her father’s footsteps, by also carefully composing one of only eight exposures permitted that vacation with her own Brownie camera.
- A photo of Aller barefoot on a rocky terrain in the Alps, also vacationing with family, because her father believed in the family’s total acclimation to nature, a hint of her subsequent focus on magnificent, dramatic landscapes.
- A third photograph of Aller as the only girl among 30 or so boys at a private boarding school, because it was the only place she could get an Abitur in Art, which she coveted. Determined early on to know what she wanted and to work hard to get it, she went to the headmaster alone and explained that his school was the only one she knew of that offered the Abitur of Art, and, since that was what she wanted, he should let her in. He did.
Renate explained early in her talk that all her art “comes alive” only with a viewer in the room. “I take my own ego out of the work and hand it over to the spectator,” she said. “The spectator has a conversation with the art work.”
The context is relevant in her immersive landscapes. She frequently hangs photographs of different sites quite close to one another in what she characterized as “picture windows.” They may have been taken at different sites, but they seem to hang well together. “Look,” she says, “take a breath; look again.” Such is the “immersive room experience.” She demonstrated with a stunning pair of large dune photographs. They seemed to be different shots of the same landscape, but in fact they were taken far apart. “They carry each other’s memories,” said Aller. They are “bound by their separateness.”
She spoke often of the importance of the space between two photographs. She told an anecdote about a discussion with an exhibit curator who wanted her massive landscapes spaced six inches apart, but Renate was adamant. They should be nine inches apart. The stillness in the space between the two landscapes she equated to “The Space between Memory and Expectation,” the title of her presentation and also of several of her exhibitions: what you remember having seen and what you anticipate seeing next. She also asked that there be no benches in the exhibit. She wanted the viewer to be actively engaged in the art before him or herself.
It became clear that creating the photographs was one part of her art. Pairing them and hanging them in a particular order was a totally different part of that creativity. She was not just showing beautiful landscape photographs but pairing them intentionally together to energize that space between Memory and Expectation. She described arranging all the photographs from a particular shoot on the floor, much like a story board, and re-arranging them until she was happy with the pattern of viewing she had created. She frequently used the word “intention” in describing her art. Nothing is happenstance. All, ultimately, is intended.
Brief answers to a number of questions included 1) Equipment doesn’t matter. You can take a soulless photograph with the finest camera; 2) She never crops a photo. All “cropping” is done in the composing of a photo and 3) She prefers black and white to color and sometimes deliberately mixes warm tones with cool tones. “I love the hazy, overcast moments.”
As Richard Trenner said in his introduction, Renate Aller clearly has brought a passionate devotion to creating art.
Respectfully submitted,
Julie Denny