Aglaia Konrad

Neither an architectural nor a documentary photographer, Aglaia Konrad focuses a direct gaze on cities like Cairo, Alexandria and Anwar el Sadat, capturing applications of “Modernist” principles in desert architecture. Her photographs spotlight an improbable dialogue between imported models and vernacular elements, constructions and sites, desert and communities, modernity and tradition.

After photographing metropolises such as Tokyo, Sao Paolo, Cairo, Paris and Mexico City, Aglaia Konrad manipulates these images by mirroring, enlarging, collaging and copying them. In her two- and three-dimensional installations she not only plays with the phenomena and the representation of the city but also toys with questions concerning ambiguity, identity, and perception. An ambitious and substantial tome, Elasticity offers insight into the characteristics and images of the metropolis. In Konrad's highly individual image manipulations, a fascinating topography of urban fabrics, facades, infrastructure, architectural forms, and surfaces is revealed. This 248-page visual essay presents her personal photographic archive “installed” in book form in a unique sequence and rhythm. Elasticity also offers a reflection on Konrad's work through essays by critic and curator Daniel Kurjakovic, artist Eran Schaerf,and Antonio Guzman, director of art space L'Aquarium in Valenciennes. Published in conjunction with L'Aquarium, Valcenciennes and Argos, Brussels.