Frank Berger: Traffic Assistants / Theseus and Kentaur

Frank Berger has developed a photographic method which can be described as a gesture of insistence. He produces extensive series of photos of certain settings, in particular street scenes, that depict variations of similar, mundane constellations in almost identical framings, and which are yet significant to the photographer. Shot in high-resolution on reversal film, the pictures do not capture a unique moment, but rather insist on the workings of the optical unconscious of photography. This artist book brings together the series Traffic Assistants (Shanghai, 2008) and Theseus & Kentaur (Vienna, 2007). Human figures are shown in what appear to be opposing contexts: as the heroic subjects of artistic representation and touristic contemplation at the Vienna Museum of Fine Arts, and then again in a Chaplinesque choreography of assistant policemen in Shanghai trying to control the local traffic.