Ralph Gibson at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg

In addition to the launch of his extensive retrospective at the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, the large crowd present on Thursday evening had the opportunity to experience the photographer’s musical talent on the guitar. Following the opening speeches, a seemingly very relaxed Gibson went up on stage and performed jazz improvisations, accompanied by projections of his images and picture collages. There was plenty of applause, as well as delighted appreciation for the exhibition, which encompasses over 300 pieces of work. It is the most comprehensive display of Gibson’s oeuvre to date; and the photographer was full of praise for the careful selection put together by Deichtorhallen curator Sabine Schnakenberg, and the manner in which the images are displayed.

Presented in twelve distinctive groups, the arc spans from early photographs Gibson took in the sixties, and unfolds to offer exciting insight into his life’s work. His most recent pictures are focused primarily on nature studies, and were taken just last year. The important early blocks of work from The Black Trilogy – which caused a sensation when he began publishing them as photo books as of 1970 –, could not fail to make up part of the exhibition: iconic motifs from the The Somnambulist, Deja-Vu and Days at Sea series illustrate the consistency of Gibson’s position as an artistic photographer during that period, and established him as a style-setting role model within the international photography scene.

Gibson decided, early in his career, that he did not want his work to focus on the photographic reproduction of reality: rather, he wanted photography itself to be understood as an aesthetic reality. His imagery isolates and abstracts, plays with light and shadow, and gives rise to motifs where a magical effect unfolds, alternating effortlessly between reality and subconsciousness, truth and fantasy, memory and projection.

For Leica lovers, the Secret of Light exhibition is quite simply a must: once again, the importance of the right tool to realise an aesthetic vision is clearly in evidence. Starting in the early sixties, Gibson put his trust in Leica cameras, and it was a Leica Monochrom that later led him to switch from analogue technology – which he had long considered the only valid form of photography – to digital photography. He took this step with decisiveness, and there was no turning back, as shown in the series he produced as of 2012: “I spent 55 years in the dark room, and my sincere wish is to spend the next 55 working in a digital one,” he muses. To this day, the creativity of the now 84-year-old Gibson seems inexhaustible, and ensures that this exhibition will be a sensational event!