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David Lynch the Factory Photographs Petra Giloy-Hirtz Text DAVID LYNCH: T DAVID LYNCH: THE FACTORY PHOTOGRAPHS David Lynch’s black-and-white photographs exude his fascination with factories, his obsession with smokestacks, chimneys, machinery, darkness and mystery. For more than 30 years now, Lynch has been photographing derelict monuments of industrialization: brick structures with arches, cornices, domes, and towers, with portals and high windows, resemble cathedrals. These are remnants of a lost world, when factories were proud milestones of progress, today deserted wastelands, scenarios for stories loaded with the emotional aura so characteristic of Lynch. The photographs were shot between 1980 and 2000, depicting factories in and around Berlin and in Poland, England, New York City, New Jersey and Los Angeles. It is as if the soot, or the vapors and fine dust of the place have deposited themselves onto their surface: they look like charcoal drawings, haptic, the graphic lines in inky black and shades of gray. In a captivating way, the photographs reveal the unmistakeable hand of Lynch: magical, surreal imagery resemble dreamlike sequences in subjects, moods, and nuances of colour. They evoke the labyrinthine, brooding and enigmatic quality of his films. While Lynch's films have a devoted following, his photographs, on the other hand, are largely unknown. The exhibition presents this treasure trove of images: photographs compiled by an artist whose perception of the world, whose power of imagination and creativity has produced some of the most exciting and original films of our times. An artist who has something to say about reality and dream, about the abysses of emotion and desire, about the dark recesses of the mind; one who is able to tell stories emotionally and intellectually. David Lynch has always refused to interpret himself. And yet, in many conversations throughout the years, he has, indeed, divulged some things about himself and his oeuvre. Listening to him may be the best guide to viewing his photographs. In talking about his films and his painting, Lynch keeps using the same words, especially “beauty”, “mood,” and “story”: concepts that are relevant to his photography as well. What distinguishes The Factory Photographs resembled here is their aesthetic appeal, their specific emotional aura, and their inherent potential of being the setting for a story. David Lynch, an icon of American cinema, was born in Missoula, Montana in 1946 and lives in Los Angeles. A director, screenwriter and producer, he is also an accomplished painter, musician, designer and photographer. He initially devoted himself to painting: in1966 he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he created his first short film. He later moved to Los Angeles. Lynch's first film, Eraserhead (1977) became a “cult classic”. The Elephant Man (1980), Blue Velvet (1986) and Mulholland Drive (2001) each brought him an Oscar nomination for Best Director. Dune (1984), Wild at Heart (1990), Lost Highway (1997), The Straight Story (1999), INLAND EMPIRE (2006) and the television series Twin Peaks (1990-1991) have been honoured with numerous awards, including the César Award for Best Foreign Film, the Palme d’Or at Cannes and a Golden Lion for Career Achievement at the Venice Film Festival. David Lynch always remained a painter as well, and “sculptor”: he personally created the sets and furniture for Eraserhead and Lost Highway in large part himself, just as he designed the Club Silencio in Paris and Cannes. His large paintings, transformed into three-dimensional objects, and his drawings have been featured in numerous exhibitions. To date, no such attention has been bestowed on Lynch’s photographs. Only a small selection was displayed along with his paintings, for instance the exhibition The Air is on Fire at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris (2007), and the Max Ernst Museum in Brühl, Germany (2010). Early series of photographs embraced a variety of subjects such as Organic Phenomena , Snowmen , Dental Hygiene , Industrial Motives , Nudes and Smoke , and Distorted Nudes , reworked Victorian photographs that reflect Lynch's increasing interest in the possibilities of digital photography. The affinity of “still photography” and “moving images” in Lynch’s work is obvious. The black- and-white industrial landscapes reappear in the production design of Eraserhead and The Elephant Man , enriched by the soundtrack of the thuds, the pounding, and the hissing of machines. While, after many years, it may be difficult to remember certain details of the plot, the desolation and oppressiveness, the unsettling eeriness still reverberates in the marrow of one's bones: the train tracks in deserted dreariness, mud and rain, the claustrophobic elevator and the hissing radiator; flickering electric light, short circuits, darkness, steam and small explosions. It is the banal things that draw Lynch's attention, not the spectacular and sensational. His aesthetic interest is in things that have been neglected: broken windowpanes, cut power lines, clogged pipes, crumbling plaster, stains. They include the sources of artificial light: lamps, wires, light switches, sockets, cables, spotlights. The world of The Factory Photographs is black-and-white, not colourful, nor glossy, nor impressive in size. The inconspicuous becomes an “image”. The everyday is transformed into an abstract composition, small yet intense. Winter, the only season, guarantees reduction and monochromy. It lays bare the graphic lines of nature: the web of branches, the dark shadows on a silvery or light gray ground, grids, netting, fences, cross windows, masonry. To Lynch, factories are an object of fascination. He is driven by childlike enthusiasm, a passion and a desire to explore. To analyze architecture, to record how industrialization has transformed the landscape, or to capture environmental disasters is not his intention. Lynch is not concerned with a “reproduction” of reality; which is also why identifying the geographic location and time of his photographs is not that important to him. He records what remains from the Industrial Revolution, yet without pursuing any scholarly interest in the process. Rather, he looks for the magical place - and he finds it as if unintentionally. David Lynch’s Factory Photographs lack the distancing eye of that “objective” photography and do not “artificially” cultivate the charm of morbidity and the mysterious. In their particular rhetoric of memory and melancholy, they pass down a legacy that, no longer wanted, is on the verge of vanishing forever. The factory has dropped out of the organizing rhythm of work and productivity; it has been left behind by the onrush of progress, superseded by modern technology that “deterritorializes” life as it no longer requires space. In this sense, the photographs are contemporary historical documents. For Lynch himself the factory is, forbidding as it may appear, “a complete world” and, in its auratic remoteness his elixir of life: “as I went to heaven”. Petra Giloy-Hirtz Exhibition curator .
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