ARIANE HOSEMANN, VALERIE STAHL VON STROMBERG

T1+2 is proud to present new work by Berlin based photographers Ariane Hosemann and Valerie Stahl von Stromberg in their first joint exhibition in London.

The artists have chosen the title for this show as a reference to a perceived neo-bohemian antipathy – within a Berlin-based artistic community – towards flamboyant certainty or, in some cases, productive certainty, and the way this informs their process of choosing to take, and then develop, a photograph; they feel there is a kind of vanity immanent in that decision.

Ariane Hosemann presents images taken in, and relating to a stylised notion of, Berlin. Here is a city with a nebulous sense of self. In her photographs Hosemann at different times succumbs to, or probes, versions of the city that stem from both within and without. She combines emotive German historical clichés such as an image of an autobahn crossing, or Alexander Platz, juxtaposed with, for example, an examination of brickwork in a new façade in the new Berlin. Throughout, there is a forced contingency between dreamlike vestiges of an iconic Berlin, and the desensitised reality of a new metropolis, fuelled by new wealth that comes with its own nuanced set of aspirations, which are in themselves foreign. By questioning these idiosyncrasies, Hosemann unsettles the viewer and forces them to challenge their reading of this city: she offers a personalised portrait of a projection.

In her Clothes series, Valerie Stahl von Stromberg presents detailed portraits of garments she has worn during her life, each one accessorised with, for example, a necklace, or a pair of Ray-Bans. But who are these clothes? What rites of passage do they represent? As objects they appear completely self-sufficient, as if they did not need a wearer to animate them, to perform in them a social practice. Still, some authorial presence has arranged these partial outfits, has accessorised these shirts and jackets. Oddly, despite the shiny background on which all but a few of the items are placed – literally mirrors or mirror-like reflecting surfaces – and despite the exhibition’s title, the impression is not so much of vanity, but of a system of recognition, a code of social display: each item is given its identity by its brand name, as if this bestowed a character on the garment – separate from the wearer. These are not the glossy must-haves from Vogues, Elle, et al. but well worn friends. The arrangements appear personal not necessarily Stahl's but those of some, perhaps several, fictional entities.

This entanglement of private code and public identity, of the personal and fictional of the images the Clothes series is followed through in the formal realization of the pieces. the casual contrivance of a private dress code is portrayed with a mock simplicity that nearly obscures its virtuosity. But like the outfits the visual effects of her formal experimentations are both rigid and laid-back, both ambitious and playful and achieve a congruence of form and content that is surprisingly tight. In VanLaak Shirt, Light Rotating, the mysterious beauty of the other pieces shines fully realized in concentrated force.

Stahl's older pieces in this exhibition show men in ritualised social roles - father, flirt, and social animal - and the delineation between individual and social context this performance can bring about. Despite the information the spectator can conjecture about the subjects, their class, the particular situation and the social environment form the image, the paradigmatic force fo the social role stands out. Who are these men when they aren't being MEN? In Stahl's vision they are grand but fleeting: they can seem colossal in the way they occupy their place. but once out of the spotlight they might shrivel and disappear - or take on another role.

The physical human body is absent from the Clothes pieces but a social body lingers, the new work also engages with the rites of recognition but has reduced the performances of identity to essential signs. Stahl has become the author of such signs.

- Isabelle Moffat & Henry Hemming