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Frank Thiel - nowhere is a place

Frank Thiel

Nowhere is a Place

Exhibitions:
- Sean Kelly - New York
January 31 - March 22, 2014

© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
courtesy:
Sean Kelly Gallery, New York,
Blain Southern, London/Berlin,
Galeria Eduardo Leme, São Paulo,
Krinzinger Gallery, Vienna

Installation Photography: Jason Wyche

Press release - Sean Kelly Gallery

For the past two decades, Thiel has recorded the changing architectural
landscape of post-reunification Berlin with densely textured, large-scale
color photographs. Nowhere is a Place marks the international debut of
Thiel’s latest work, in which he has turned his camera on the massive
glacial ice formations in Argentine Patagonia. The images that comprise
the exhibition are a haunting meditation on the strength and majesty, as
well as the fragility and endangerment, of the natural world.

The show takes its name from a book co-written by Bruce Chatwin and
Paul Theroux in 1992 about their impressions of Patagonia. Thiel visited
Patagonia for the first time fifteen years ago and the overwhelming
power of this extreme place stayed with him. He returned in 2011 and
2012 for several site visits and, ultimately, to create these images.

The exhibition includes one of Thiel’s largest works to date, an almost
thirty-foot long, five-panel photograph of the leading edge of the
Perito Moreno glacier in Los Glaciares National Park, which is part of the
Southern Patagonian Ice Field, the third largest ice cap in the world.
The expansive size of the photographs is crucial for Thiel, as he hopes to
give the viewer an understanding of the imposing physicality of the glacial
configurations and to see the seemingly endless variations in tones – from
deep blue to slate grey – of the ice wall. The exhibition also includes an
image of the terminus of the Piedras Blancas glacier, revealing the almost
lunar-like landscape of the rocky, barren ground remaining as the glacier
recedes.
Thiel’s trademark eye for detail and composition, and his and his painterly
sense of abstracted texture, are present throughout the extraordinary new
works in this exhibition.

Together the images that Thiel has created for Nowhere is a Place provide
an opportunity for the viewer to experience the timeless and raw beauty of
one of the purest landscapes on earth.

www.skny.com/artists/frank-thiel

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