Joachim Koester Day for Night, Christiana 1998, C-Print Mounted on Aluminum Panel

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Description

Joachim Koester (b. 1964)
Day for Night, Christiania 1998 Coppenhagen, Denmark
The CA Post Office/Machine Hall
signed and dated 'Joachim … Read more Joachim Koester (b. 1964)
Day for Night, Christiania 1998 Coppenhagen, Denmark
The CA Post Office/Machine Hall
signed and dated 'Joachim Koester 1996'' (on the reverse of the mount)
color coupler print (c-print) mounted on aluminum panel
25¾ x 38½ in. (65.3 x 97.7 cm.)
Executed in 1996. This work is number five from an edition of five. (5 of 5)
Purchased in New York City in December 1999.

Provenance
Greene Naftali Inc.,
New York

Day for Night, Christiania 1996. For quite a while Joachim Koester has been interested in the cinematic technique "day for night", the technique used when filming a night scene during the day. It is a standard technique. The title of Francois Truffaut's film "la Nuit Americaine" is a reference to this.
Over a period of time Joachim Koester has been doing tests, trying to adapt the "day for night" technique to still photography. The project is a series of photographs from Christiania, a special site in Copenhagen.
Christiania is a community situated near the centre of the city. It is one of the only communities in Europe where an alternative and anarchistic society has developed and survived over a longer period of time, in part due to a large amount of good-will from the Danish government who consider Christiania a "social experiment".
Christiania was founded in 1971 by squatters occupying a former military base. Within a few years, the appearance of the place was totally changed, leaving room for almost every kind of activity, from ecological kindergartens to a very well-organized marked for hashish. The intention of the squatters was to create a "city within the city"; a place with more freedom than anywhere else, and today Christiania still employs a collective economy and does not submit to the laws of Denmark.

By documenting Christiania through a series of "day for night" photographs Joachim Koester creates a different kind of imagery. Day for night: both day and night in the same image. Like Christiania, dream and reality: the dream of creating a perfect community compared to the reality of the place. The project is an attempt to retrace this dream through the reality of the place today.

The project Day for Night, Christiania 1996 will also be exhibited in the exhibition Escape Attempts which takes place on Christiania from August 16. The work will be presented in the form of a slim show and as photographs. See less