pantone 352u
(Rotterdam / Wilhelminakade 137)
This photo by Stefan Keppel (1973, the Netherlands) is part of the series entre entréé project périferique paris that come about during a residency at the Van Doesburghuis in Meudon Val Felury and at Atelier Holsboer in Paris. For an entire year Keppel collected images and materials alongside the Boulevard Péripherique. Keppel then printed the black-and-white photos of plants onto vintage green Pantone sheets. Composition and color, including the frames that list information about colors and paper types add to the process-like anonymity that on closer inspection renders an aesthetic, very personal and abstract reality. Keppel makes subtle choices as to printing process, paper type, and the form of objects. These choices lend the work a poetic quality. What we see is a cityscape that is stripped of all glamour and that distills immeasurable beauty from the remains of the periphery. For Out There Keppel has made a unique copy that fits into a light box in public space. The ‘polishedness’ of the light box makes the work take on a different feel and zoom in on the peripheral phenomena of architecture and views on landscape in the suburbs of metropolitan cities. Keppel shows that a representation of a landscape is not necessarily situated in ‘wide nature’ and that the horizon is not an essential part.