2022 – Jessica Backhaus I CUT OUTS, a video by Prospekto Galerija, Vilnius, Lithuania.
2021 – Elles X Paris Photo : Jessica Backhaus, a video by Fisheye Le Mag, Paris, France.
2021 – Künstler-Interview mit Jessica Backhaus, a video by Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung, Berlin, Germany.
2013 – CC Contemporary I Jessica Backhaus ~ Gisèle Freund I Kunsthalle Erfurt, a film by Marcus Grysczok, Erfurt, Germany.
2012 – WONDER Jessica Backhaus - FOAM, a film by Willem Aerts, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
CUT OUTS
The pictures in Jessica Backhaus' new series cut outs are created by using the simplest means and they reduce photography to its basic elements: light and shadow, shape and color.
In her last publication A Trilogy (Kehrer, 2017), Jessica Backhaus has taken
a path into abstraction, which is consistently continued here - with very analog, photographic methods. Cut out transparent paper reacts to the heat of intense sunlight, deforms, rises, and casts shadows. The photographer who arranged and staged these compositions becomes an astonished observer of events on which she has only limited influence, the documentarist of a visual experimental arrangement, a poetic choreography of intense colors in the sunlight.
Author: Katharina Scriba Artist: Jessica Backhaus Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg Design: Hannah Feldmeier and Jessica Backhaus Softcover with color edging 22,2 x 31,1cm 128 pages 50 color ills. English 2021
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FAR AWAY BUT CLOSE
Far away but close showcases work made by Jessica Backhaus during many visits to Chile over the last seven years.
"Presence, image, and suggestion: art's sacred trinity is embodied with such generous concentration in these images by Jessica Backhaus, who we as Chileans should thank for making so exquisitely visible, what we are too distracted to notice. The power of the color that portrays and crowns the subject, provokes the sensation that we are seeing something we see every day but haven't actually seen before."
From the introduction by Antonio Skármeta
Author: Antonio Skármeta Artist: Jessica Backhaus Publisher: Another Place Press/ Scottish Highlands Design: Iain Sarjeant, Jessica Backhaus Softcover: 24 x 19cm 72 pages 52 color and b/w ills. English/Spanish 2019
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A TRILOGY
Jessica Backhaus embarks on her work with an obvious relish in experimentation. The photo artist draws inspiration from the simplicity of everyday things, from unassuming scenes and silence. The artist's new trilogy brings together three series of approximately 40 works each. The first series, Beyond Blue, is devoted completely to colorful threads, staged against colored backgrounds. They seem to lead a life of their own, tracing the fall of light in the space and forming variously shaped outlines. The viewer feels compelled to linger in this radical reduction, trying to unravel the entanglement of the seemingly unspectacular with the resulting aura of contemplation. In Shifting Clouds, Backhaus considers and documents this very transition – a reality that lies in between things. The second series shows fragments and visions that are poised on the verge of becoming, caught in limbo: reflections, haptically appealing surfaces, shapes imaginatively metamorphosing, upbeat tones, intensely colored sensations. In the third series, New Horizon, the artist presents free-flowing and persuasive poetic impressions. The compositions captivate with their variety and puzzle-like elements. Backhaus is breaking new ground in photography, incorporating components of mixed media, painting, and collage that expand and deepen these abstractions.
Authors: Rémi Coignet, Jean Dykstra, Matthias Harder Artist: Jessica Backhaus Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg/Berlin Design: Hannah Feldmeier and Jessica Backhaus Paperback/Softcover: 30 x 22,6 cm 180 pages 91 ills. English/German 2017
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Six Degrees of Freedom
"Jessica Backhaus examines, with her latest photographic
series six degrees of freedom, universal questions of human existence. Based on her own life story she inquires after the significance of knowing the roots of one's own existence and to what extent it is possible to re-elaborate these – usually prescribed– roots.
Initially unconsciously, then ever more purposefully the photographer, who grew up in a family of artists, at some point in her life set off in search of her own background. On this journey she visits places of her childhood and youth and fills the gaps in her memories.
With her photographs she symbolically captures the essence of this search and of her life stages. Simultaneously, she pulls off the balancing act of keeping the images open for the beholder.
Her photographs possess metaphoric potential and work against the grain of a classic social documentary photography. They alternate between realism and abstraction.
Authors: Caroline von Courten, Lars Mextorf, Jessica Backhaus Artist: Jessica Backhaus Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg/Berlin Design: Hannah Feldmeier and Jessica Backhaus Hardcover: 22,8 x 27,4cm 112 pages 64 color and b/w ills. English/German 2015
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Once, still and forever
"Once, Still and Forever" sets out a quest for traces of time and meaning – things that once were, still are and will stay forever. Some of the works in this latest photography series by Jessica Backhaus date from her last year in New York, where she made her home for 14 years. But others tell of her radical break with the past and her return to her old homeland, Europe. The personal and cultural changes honed her awareness and caused her to contemplate the fragility of our emotions and existence –
thoughts the photographer translates into her own characteristic visual language. Darker nuances come to the fore in the still lifes; picture planes splinter, hinting at powerful transformations. At 16, Backhaus left Germany, only returning to Berlin 22 years later. What was once, still is and will forever remain is the artist’s infallible instinct for pictorial composition, a deftness she continues to take to new heights. Her views of ostensibly prosaic scenes open up to us a cosmos of unforeseen meanings while evoking a mood of affectionate familiarity.
Authors: Elisabeth Biondi, Jean-Christophe Ammann, Jessica Backhaus Artist: Jessica Backhaus Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg/Berlin Design: Hannah Feldmeier and Jessica Backhaus Hardcover: 24 x 29,5cm 88 pages 55 color ills. English/German 2012
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I wanted to see the world
Jessica Backhaus is that rare photographer today who can capture nuances of everyday life in combination with a sensational feeling for color.
Within all three of her published series, Jesus and the Cherries, What Still Remains and One Day in November (Kehrer 2005 and 2008), we witness the most subtle, yet vibrant use
of color as it reflects off surfaces or embraces people and their possessions. It is color at the service of her subject, and she embraces the world around her with
considerable tenderness and precision.
In her most recent series I Wanted To See The World, we are totally immersed in her rippling colors as we see both the natural world and man-made structures in reflection on
the surface of rivers and lakes. In particular the works from Venice offer the most intriguing palette of soft oranges, pale yellows and strange grays.
Editor & Author: Laurence Miller Artist: Jessica Backhaus Publisher: Laurence Miller Gallery, New York & Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg/Berlin Design: Loreen Lampe and Jessica Backhaus Softcover 31 x 23 cm 80 pages 41 color ills. English 2010
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One Day in November
Jessica Backhaus’ book is a tribute to Gisèle Freund on what would have been her 100th birthday in December 2008. The book One Day In November is a testament to the
friendship between the great photographer and a young photography student in Paris during the 1990’s. Intended as a posthumous birthday present, Jessica Backhaus
compiled a collection of images that are meant to convey visually what Gisèle Freund taught her and what Gisèle meant to her.
Gisèle Freund herself can certainly be considered as one of the great artistic and intellectual figures of the twentieth century. Her impact can be traced to both
her photographic and literary
work and to her own colorful biography.
Author: Jessica Backhaus Artist: Jessica Backhaus Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg Design: Katharina Stumpf and Jessica Backhaus Hardcover 21,5 x 24,5 cm 128 pages 99 color and 1 b/w ills. German/English/French 2008
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What Still Remains
What Still Remains is the title of a photo series made up of 65 works created since 2006 in various locations. After her first book, Jesus and the Cherries,
about life in rural Poland, the German-American photographer Jessica Backhaus now pursues in this new cycle of photographs the question of why things that have
been forgotten or left behind pop up in specific places and then seem to take on a life of their own. Backhaus has succeeded here in capturing motifs that exude
an air both sublime and enigmatic. Our gaze is transfixed as we attempt to unravel the mystery of what makes these banal objects so intriguing.
In their composed beauty and expressiveness, Backhaus’ photographs are reminiscent of still life paintings. But unlike the classical paintings depicting what
were often artificial tableaux of objects meant to evoke aspects of vanitas, Backhaus manages to make time and transience palpable by framing scenes she comes upon by accident.
Author: Jean Dykstra Artist: Jessica Backhaus Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg Design: Katharina Stumpf and Jessica Backhaus Hardcover 28 x 25 cm 96 pages 43 color ills. English 2008
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What Still Remains - Collector's Edition in rusted metal box
The Collector’s edition is available with a signed and numbered C-print inserted in the book.
Sheet format ca. 28 x 24 cm. Choice of two images:
”Destiny”,
"Marlon Brando". Edition of 25 each.
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
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Jesus and the Cherries
The photographer Jessica Backhaus has traveled in the region of
the Polish province of Pomosrskie repeatedly since 1993. She spent a total of three and a half years portraying the town of Netno and its residents.
She shows people
in their apartments, at work, and in the untouched Polish landscape. With a sure eye and an unusual colour language, she points out important but easily
overlooked details: plastic flowers and crocheted pillowcases, images of saints and lace doilies, and cherries preserved in mason jars.
The pictures are neither intrusive nor tactless; she encounters people with dignity and full of admiration for the way of life of Poland’s rural population.
The intimate character of the photos suggests that the German-
American photographer must have developed a special relationship to her subject: In Backhaus photographs we feel the warmth, cordiality, and authenticity
with which she was received in Poland. The photographers clear gaze captured the beauty of everyday details and moods. Jesus and the Cherries describes a
Poland still a long way from the modernizations that full integration in the European Union will bring. Jessica Backhaus thus tells a tale of
traditional ways of life that may already belong to the past.
Authors: Monica Rydiger, Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen Artist: Jessica Backhaus Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg Design: Anja Aronska and Jessica Backhaus Hardcover 24,6 x 32,8 cm 144 pages 94 color photographs English/German 2005
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Jesus and the Cherries – Limited Edition
"Jesus and the Cherries" is also available as Limited Edition: with signed original print in handmade slipcase (Atelier Dermont Duval),
dust jacket with Cerata. Choice of three images: “Violetta by the lake”, “Blue Spoon”, “A Renovated life”. Edition of 25 each.
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
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Jesus and the Cherries – Collector’s Edition (SOLD OUT)
This collector's edition of the book includes a signed original photograph and is housed in a handcrafted box that incorporates an authentic
piece of Polish porcelain and is draped with Cerata-cloth (Atelier Dermont Duval, Paris). Choice of three images: “Olga”, “Pink Pillow”, “Carrots by the sink”.
Edition of 10 each.
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
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ONE DAY
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The world becomes more beautiful with each day
In 2009 Jessica Backhaus moved from New York to Berlin. In her work, she concentrates on her surrounding and her every day life, which is influenced deeply by the changing of her
place to live. To capture the daily banal motifs, to find the poetic moments which are more than the surface, is the root of her work.
Publisher: Revolver Publishing, Berlin Edition in a box, 3 original color prints, 35,5cm x 28cm, signed and numbered, 25 copies.
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Carlos Carvalho Contemporanea Lisbon 2022 |
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