Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Big City Landscapes (Großstadtbilder), 1913-1915.
The concept of city, as an entity, as a live, ever-changing creature, constantly undergoing transformations that are not always physically-evident or visible but can nevertheless be perceived by a human mind, a human heart, has always attracted me in a strangely irrepressible way. I find it hard to trace back the origin of this fascination, but its force reaches me through all its manifestations - a picture, a photograph, a character in a narrative (I believe cities are never mere settings), in a film, or the real thing. It might be the idea of so many things happening, of familiarity or sometimes and disorientation some other times (even both at the same time); of possibilities, of entrapment; of hectic ant-like activity or of sepulchral stillness. A city can be everything, can mean anything, and a person can be a million different selves with the turn of another corner.
The concept of city, as an entity, as a live, ever-changing creature, constantly undergoing transformations that are not always physically-evident or visible but can nevertheless be perceived by a human mind, a human heart, has always attracted me in a strangely irrepressible way. I find it hard to trace back the origin of this fascination, but its force reaches me through all its manifestations - a picture, a photograph, a character in a narrative (I believe cities are never mere settings), in a film, or the real thing. It might be the idea of so many things happening, of familiarity or sometimes and disorientation some other times (even both at the same time); of possibilities, of entrapment; of hectic ant-like activity or of sepulchral stillness. A city can be everything, can mean anything, and a person can be a million different selves with the turn of another corner.