Darren Almond: Nocturn

The title of the book and exhibition is derived from the large-format Nocturnes (2004–2010) featuring photographs of moonlit landscapes using long exposure times, which evoke Romantic landscapes in their European variants, and classical Japanese and Chinese landscape painting in their Asiatic motifs. The absence of shadows in these photographs is visible testimony to a seemingly frozen time, whose light doesn’t actually illuminate the scenes, but instead hangs like an emanation from the landscape. These photographs can be situated in the place where painting, photography, perception, and imagination intersect. The artist duly formulates the experience of time as an endless repetition of abrasive and lengthy spiritual retreats in his powerful video piece "Sometimes Still" (2010).

Darren Almond is without doubt one of the outstanding English contemporary artists. Andreas Baur is director of the Städtische Galerie Villa Merkel in Esslingen. Johannes Meinhard is a professor, an art critic and theorist.