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German-born photographer Renate Aller has been photographing the Atlantic Ocean for over a decade from a single point on the Hamptons’ coastline. Her images capture the infinitely shifting colors and textures of the sky and water, and the beauty and grandeur of the ocean, providing a rich document of what has drawn people to this area for generations. The sublime beauty of this view, which Aller directly connects to the great 19th century German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, is also a metaphor for the landscape of the human emotions. Aller’s viewpoint is static, but the changing weather and light allow for a diverse series of images that open up a vast ‘visual library’ of memories and associations. Printed in Germany, the book captures the subtle mystery of her larger prints and the original oceanscapes.

Co-edited with an essay by German art historian Jasmin Seck and contributions by Hamburger Kunsthalle Museum’s contemporary art curator Dr. Petra Roettig and New York critic Richard B. Woodward that place Aller’s work both in the context of landscape photography and the history of images of the East End’s southern shore.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in Germany, Renate Aller lives and works in New York. The long term project “Oceanscapes: One View. Ten Years” was a critic’s choice by Nord Wennerstrom for ArtForum, and was reviewed by Vince Aletti for The New Yorker. Pieces from that series and other site specific art works are in the collections of corporate institutions, private collectors and museums, including The Yale University Art Gallery, the George Eastman House, Rochester, New York and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany and the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison. She is represented by the Adamson Gallery, Washington DC, Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, and the Robert Morat Galerie, Hamburg, Germany.

ABOUT THE WRITERS

Richard B. Woodward is a critic and journalist in New York who has written extensively about art and photography. He contributes regularly to Seascapes: one Location reviewed in the New Yorker
"This German photographer's large-scale seascapes are all taken from the same location on Westhampton Beach, but they range from minimalist studies to dramatic views of storm clouds and glistening water. Richard Misrach's unabashedly gorgeous panoramic vistas of San Francisco Bay, also shot from the same spot each time, would seem to be the model here. Hiroshi Sugimoto's photos of sea and sky provide a more rigorous template, one that Aller honors but softens, primarily through her subtle use of color. There are no blazing sunsets here, only shades of blue, white, gray - a cool, chic version of the rainbow."

Vince Aletti - December 15, 2008