Vera Lutter: Light In Transit

In this photographic study of the Frankfurt International Airport, Vera Lutter transforms a place of passage, characterized by constant comings and goings, into something still and frozen in light. Lutter responds to the hectic activity of this "hub for a myriad of movements" by taking hold of the airport's various containers and coverings--be they airplane fuselages or the giant hangers where the flying machines are serviced--with an artistic technique whose spatial contents consist of emptiness. Using a camera obscura, that most primal form of modern photography, she captures all the movements that occur during the period of exposure and within its field of vision, and brings them to a standstill. The provisional image receptacles that Lutter constructs are themselves associated with travel: suitcases or a freight container with holes drilled into them and light-sensitive paper lining their back walls. Light in Transit, the first book published on Lutter's work, presents a part of Void Transfer, her long-term project about contemporary ideas of mobility.