Manhole Covers
It is all about looking, recognizing and allowing viewpoints and perspectives. Observe and accept different kinds of views and you will realise.
On knees and elbows over cobblestones crawling arises THE photo – physically uncomfortable is the search for perspective, light direction and section. The idea of what is below the motifs is just as uncomfortable as the stench they often exhale. A part of the topic: 'What lies beneath?'
The processing of the material is part of the artistic process and compresses the statement. Aust puts accents, by contrast, colour enhancement or conversion to black / white - motifs are never arranged
Assertion of the individual against the infinite reproducibility of oneself
"...It is not eternity that symbolises the immobility of life, but its transience. In my eyes, it is the frame of reference of still life in which the moods and atmospheres of many of Stephan-Maria Aust's manhole covers can be expressed..."
Dr Hermann Ühlein
Independent Art Historian, Curator, Author
Immersion in the elemental
"...His photographs can just as well be a window for the viewer to a less reality-saturated, more fantastic story about warriors armed with iron armour and subterranean dungeons - into which one believes one sees the photographer enter in his photographs. What more does art want, what more does photography want?..."
Wolfgang Meyer-Hesemann
Chair of the Kulturforum Schleswig-Holstein and freelance photographer in his introduction to the exhibition "watchout" Bunker D Kiel
