Ingar Krauss: Sugar Beets

Ingar Krauss has been depicting sugar beets in their individual form since 2017. As he did in his book 2016 book of still lifes "39 Bilder", he also stages the sugar beets in natural light against a dark background, photographing them in black-and-white using analog methods and reducing them to the essentials of their appearance. Thus, over the years, a typology of this "Beta Vulgaris" has emerged. His sugar beet physiognomies allow the cultivar to appear in its simple dignity and melancholy, while at the same time providing the opportunity to contemplate human perception of, and appreciation, for nature and its products. To avoid superficial, quick browsing, this publication was not conceived as a classic book, but as a lavishly produced portfolio box, with 36 individual picture cards printed in strong tritone on cardboard, a poster featuring the complete typology, and a text booklet with an essay by Eugen Blume. Ingar Krauss (*1965) works exclusively in analog, makes all the prints himself, and understands photography as an "alchemical image process that is also related to fine art, painting, and printmaking, in terms of craftsmanship" (from the accompanying text by Eugen Blume). Eugen Blume lives and works as a freelance curator and author in Berlin, where he was director of the Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum fuer Gegenwartskunst until 2016