Photogenic notes
The 20th century as a picture description by Georg Raab
“Einblick” – Kölner Stadtmagazin 1/99

Albert Einstein acted relatively unconventionally in his old age, as proven by the photograph of his tongue. During the first moon landing Neil Armstrong had nothing better to do than take a couple of snaps of Edward Aldrin, even the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima once served as a macabre photo motif. Due to the omnipresence of the photographers, photographical proof exists of nearly every more or less spectacular moment of this century. Everyone knows these pictures, everyone has a vague idea about the story behind the photograph. One could virtually review once more the past century by means of these famous snap-shots. Precisely this takes place during the new exhibition in the “Büro für Fotos” (Office for photographs). Georg Raab, an up until now unknown artist from Cologne, exhibits about forty pictures of different formats which captured dramatic, moving, sensational or humiliating split seconds of our society. The artist covers these renowned motifs with meticulous picture descriptions, that merely relate to the aesthetical, visual impression, without repeating the historical context or referring to the emotional connotation that automatically impose themselves upon the contemplator.