Art inspires.
Gunther Salje, professor of film, taught us to try to learn from the best. Michelangelo Antonioni, Alfred Hitchcock, Sam Peckinpah, Francois Truffaut. Watching closely, watching again and again, just like the representatives of the French Nouvelle Vague. Looking, questioning, learning. Also: composing pictures.
This works with film, with all the arts, including photography. Watching exhibitions, browsing catalogues, rolling through illustrated books, marvel at works, examine, question. And discover again and again what fascinates me personally.
Whether Concrete Art or Minimal Art, whether Hard Edge Painting or – Attention, Photography! – the prosaic works of the “New Topographic Movement” (above all the incredible Lewis Baltz) or – quite differently – Martin Parr with his compositional, colourful and content-related provocations. Or the Düsseldorf School. Or young photographers from the annual “Gute Aussichten” competition. Or, or, or…
All this together becomes a source of inspiration for own ideas. And that’s why I’ve been involved with photography for many years.
… and suddenly a photograph, a graphic stands for itself. Not abstraction nor image. Something independent, from which a very own aesthetic emerges, sometimes also a kind of contradictory beauty.
Marcus Metzner
- 1969 born in the Ruhr area
- lives in Neuss and Gütersloh
- Film studies with Prof. Dr. Gunther Salje
- Studies of German and English literature and language
- Training as TV journalist
- Work in TV, film, marketing, PR
- more than 25 years engagement with film and photography
- Member of the Neuss Artists Association