Andreas Herzau

"In Istanbul, the stones are gold"

The art journalists Nicole Büsing and Heiko Klaas talked to the Hamburg photographer Andreas Herzau.

Mr. Herzau, New York, Kalkutta, Bombay. The melting pots of this world seem to be magical. In 2007 and 2008, the photos seized for their new book about Istanbul. What fascinates you at the city?

I have been working on a project that calls "Heureka Europa". The first chapter on this work was the book »Germany. A journey to the Germans «. For this new book, I wanted to go to the outside border. The second reason was that at that time in Germany has given a very intensive discussion on the issue of EU accession. As a result, Istanbul is focused for me. These two reasons and my personal project goals were then the occasion to say: Okay, I drive there and look at that.

Have you traveled to Istanbul several times for this book, or have you stopped there for a long time?

I was always there for a long time. I started with ten days to see if there is something. After the first stay I am very happy again and again after Istanbul broken up. In this way I have learned the city more and better. There were a total of 40 days where I photographed there.

They were traveling in a wide variety of neighborhoods. How did you choose the places?

My kind of photography is actually called road photography. And this comes from the American tradition of »Street Photography." I say that because it has something with my way of working. It's actually so, and that's not only pictorially spoken that I'm going to the door in the morning, run or maybe once a bit with the subway drive or by bus. But I then drive bus to experience how it is to drive by bus. I am, superficially considered, aimless. In principle, I leave myself, and I try to respond to these original impressions, which I have then to react very spontaneously. There was a tram line, with which I just drove to the final stop to watch me what's there.

So no planning but rather an intuitive approach?

Yes, exactly. But there are always interfaces, where you realize because of the lives there that the general crossing points are in public life. There then the things are culminating and are very concentrated.

Did you also have certain places recommend?

I also have friends in Istanbul. They called me places, but I never did not go somewhere due to recommendations. I have noticed over the years that this "go there, do not make this" usually not conducive. It is conducive, for example, if you choose certain events in advance, such as May 1, where experience has shown that it comes to great demonstrations in Istanbul.

Is there an Istanbul, or is the city not rather from infinite many small towns and quarters that all have their own identity and their own game rules?

There is a very clear demarcation between the individual neighborhoods in Istanbul, which have arisen due to the history of the city. The result was if one wants, even by gentralization. The former red light district along the Istiklal Caddesi is today the in-quarters, the Hippest Quarter at all. And those who live there are rich. But as well as there is a district like Fatih, who is very traditional and completed in itself.

Immediately on the first pictures we see people with luggage, the many buses on the Taksim Square, the slightly banging look of a young woman at the ferry terminal. Istanbul seems to be a city of transit, a city of permanent arrival and permanent farewell.

In English you would say: "The City Is Moving". The whole city is in motion. The observation is right. It is also a transit or rather the endpoint of a transit because Istanbul is a attraction. Elif Shafak wrote that in her essay, but I had already heard it before: In the rural areas of Turkey still says, "In Istanbul, the stones are gold." That is, there is still work there Man earning money. At the same time, the city is of course also an intellectual meeting place. Quite different than, for example, Ankara, much artistic and also substantially prospecting from the appearance.

How does it happen to yourself if you come to this city and leave you again?

I now know the city. If I get there, I'm just looking forward to it. Today I can drive for only three days after Istanbul and come completely relaxed there. Then I sit down somewhere and let the city look at me. It's easy: Through this intense work, Istanbul has become a city for me like Berlin or New York, where you drive to make things and meet people. As far as farewell is concerned: Personally, a certain melancholy always introduces itself when I leave. I'm already looking for thought, not quite concretely, but rather dreamy after a way to live there for a long time. Simply because Istanbul holds a completely different life experience for a medium-sized white cardboard nose like me than about Berlin or New York.

The structure of the photo book is based on contrasts: Quiet moments alternate with energetic images. Are these opposites reflect their experiences during the stay? The city also has something very prominent, pulsating.

Of course she also has something improvised. There are two viewing possibilities of this work. Once there is the possibility to see the individual pictures and get involved. But we talk about a book here. It is a self-contained object. My claim, and now there are people who say this would have been fulfilled, was actually that a sense of this city arises. That the feeling of running through this city is created even when viewing the book. The change of images guarantees a certain rhythm that also has something to do with a tension form. You can compare that a bit with the movie cut, except that there are no running pictures.

Once again to the methodology of Street Photography. They always go straight into the camera with the camera. How do you master the difficult spot between watching and involved? Does it always manage to go to however invisible through human beings?

Actually already. I think that one of the most important means of Street Photography is the social competence of the photographer, which coincides whether or not a valid picture arises or not. That is, I'm looking for very concrete places or situations where I can not find anymore. I do not lure in the trash or behind a corner, but I move very dynamically with the crowd and do not stand somewhere around and photograph.

But there is one exception, a picture that makes you very clearly see your own shadow.

Yes right, that has something to include myself. I did that a bit of nonsense, from form playing. At the same time, it is also a very mood-loaded picture. For example, from the sun. There is a very own time in Istanbul when it is half six, six o'clock in the evening. I always feel that people then reconcile with the past day. That's this moment where you have the day behind, the whole trouble and the difficulties. And then this golden light comes very flat there and brings a very peaceful and conciliatory mood.

The famous Istanbul photographer Ara Güler - he was born in 1928 - with his black and white photographs shaped the picture of his hometown. Have you dealt with his work closer? Were there personal encounters with him?

We met. Of course I knew his work. You encounter you when you are in Istanbul, anyway. The personal encounter was then very distanced. He is of course such a kind of Pasha, who apparently thought, I was a student who wants to have a photocritique. He did not understand what I wanted about him. I thought that was a pity. In the book there is a cross-over between black and white and color. I have taken these black and white pictures with it because they represent a part of the city, which one still sees today, but the Ara Güler has already photographed in the 50s and 60s. That flashes from time to time. Sometimes this part is just there. And of course he is also very much essential for the atmosphere in this city. Otherwise, the book is actually, if you want to say it spelled, the antithesis on Ara Güler. Actually, I say, Istanbul definitely does not look like this anymore.

The city is apparently ready for Europe. For several years you have the impression that many of the lovable characteristics of this city are lost. Does not the old Istanbul disappear gradually?

I am not a nostalgic. I say: That's the course of the world. These are topics that exist in every city. If I met those so open-minded, that would certainly also play a role. I did not consciously exclude that. But that's the course of things. 20 or 30 years ago, Chelsea or Soho were also unknown areas or have just been discovered.

We want to come back to black and white and color photography. Most of their recordings are colored, but sometimes they also prefer classic black and white photography. What does it depend on whether you use black and white or color?

There is color photography and color photography for me. Color photography is characterized by providing an additional design element by the color and that an additional information level is in it. Black and white, I have already indicated earlier, of course, in the case of Istanbul the link to the old one, in the past, which is still still visible. I think it's also interesting to watch people's reactions when they leaf through the book. Although they register that there are black and white images, but it will, if I have folded it, is not felt in retrospect as a book in which black and white and color stand next to each other. One could call the use of black and white such a kind of "historical blinking".

On many of their recordings you can see individual people looking at the sea. A certain melancholy and a slope to paused seem to be owned by the residents of this city.

The Bosphorus in itself plays a very important role in the life of the Istanbuler. He is dominant to the atmosphere of the city, which was also explained to me when I was there, and in retrospect also found his confirmation: the color of the water changes daily. That is, there is another color mood in the city each time. That also has something meditative. There is a picture at the end of the book, where you can see two cars, between which a loving couple stands. Behind it is to see the Bosphorus. This is a picture that would consider many superficially as a cheesy love picture. But if you live in Istanbul, you know that the premises are very cramped there. A loving couple has no room at all to meet undisturbed.

Tell us something about the cover picture. With the colorful balloons it also exudes melancholy and world pain in addition to all treats. How do these balloons symbolize the basic tone of this city for you?

The cover picture shows a shooting range. He was below the stadium of galatasaray on the water. It looks like a surrealist installation. The one who operate this shooting range sat somewhere in the shade. He was not present at all. You can shoot on the balloons, you can shoot on the coladoses or down on the small lids from the water bottles. I also photographed that with people shooting, but that was completely demyry-stifling. It is a very cryptic picture. But in a sense it is also for this city. There is this provisional moment: the simple, simple, but also poignant. The owner just has a bag in which everything fits. When he comes in the morning, he pumps up his balloons, pulls his threads, hangs on the there and has a shooting range during the day.

Istanbul changes with a rasant that is rather unknown in Western Europe. What is the appropriate term for your book project: declaration of love or visual farewell letter?

I would rather tend to a declaration of love, because it would have given no reason to publish the opposite of a declaration of love as a book. It is already the confrontation with regard to the general and I've been stupid for the general discussion about the EU accession, which I simply feel extremely flat, on both sides. And it is really the attempt by someone who was socialized in Germany, in Central Europe, so, to open up this and swelled out of this event as he got into it. I also want to make an offer, maybe look different on this city. Most people reach very prefabricated pictures at Istanbul. And then they want to confirm the pictures they know: by their own experience, through television or by magazines. What was an advantage for me: I photographed everything possible, but not the blue mosque and other tourist places. This discovers Istanbul's vacancies in which I could let off steam. So I have the other aspect of Istanbul, who still exists in addition to the tourist routes, can be backed. In this respect, it would be more likely to be a declaration of love because a declaration of love is always a very personal, subjective affair.

So do you consciously relate to the EU accession to the book?

I think so. Because I say with these pictures, that's a great city, it is pulsating, she is interesting, she is modern. There is a past, and the people are preserving too. But the people from the outside do not allow Istanbul to be modern because that does not fit into the cliché of the resort. They would probably also want to preserve the big bazaar in his condition of 1950 even in 60 years, in case of doubt with statists, even if there was no trade for a long time. I just want to say it is a big city, a metropolis like many others just - but with its own character. And Europe can only survive if it goes with this open mind, which stands for Europe in the broadest sense, also in the cultural sense. The book is a plea to open the eyes. It is bulky because it does not show tourist attractions, but it may also be important to understand Europe from time to time as something else than a joint resort of resorts.

05.07.2010