Mono no Aware

In his project “Mono no Aware” photographer Uwe Langmann explores the notion of ‘emptiness’, a concept which has its origins in Zen Buddhism. Like in the classic Japanese ink paintings (sumi-e), the photographer uses empty, almost white surfaces on which he presents his sparsely arranged motifs. The white of an unpainted paper in sumi-e, becomes a snow surface, an overexposed grey sky or the surface of water in Langmann’s images. On these surfaces, which he calls ‘resonance spaces’, he stages minimalist, silent gestures of man and nature.
For Langmann, landscapes, people, animals and objects become projection screens for his thoughts and feelings as well as for those of the viewer, who is constantly encouraged to enter into an active intellectual dialogue with what they see.