Nadav Kander (b. 1961) is a master image maker. He is a Prix Pictet award-winner whose work is held in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and Victoria & Albert Museum. Kander has photographed presidents, celebrities and cultural figures, as well as turning his lens to landscapes, from China’s Yangtze river to Chernobyl. Last year, the major survey exhibition The Edge of Things brought together some of his most celebrated pictures – including portraits of director Werner Herzog, actor Rosamund Pike and the late David Lynch. It was curated by acclaimed art writer David Campany, who described his work as: “pensive, laden with possibility.” Whatever the genre, whomever – or wherever – the subject: “people and places are permitted to keep their secrets.”
Now, London’s Flowers Gallery presents After Dark – a show that neatly demonstrates Campany’s point. The exhibition includes three projects, including the ongoing Dark Line – The Thames Estuary, which is dedicated to the second-longest river in the UK, extending 215 miles from Gloucestershire through nine different counties. Kander’s atmospheric compositions document the River Thames at its point of connection with the North Sea. The waterway plays a central role in the city’s complex history, and the images are a metaphor for the weight of London’s past, encouraging us to think about “the countless generations who have voyaged, fought, traded, loved, lived and died on its banks.” There’s also a personal factor, as Kander explains: “When alone, there is nowhere I’d rather be than beside large bodies of slow-moving water. I feel myself, quiet and alive as emotions come and go.”
This slow sense of pace is key to After Dark. Elsewhere, The Colour Fields series takes its name from the abstract painting style that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s – think Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Helen Frankenthaler. Yet Kander’s images aren’t completely detached from reality. They depict land and seascapes – from Colorado and Indiana to Copacabana Beach and Santa Monica – fading into the night sky. The long-exposures sometimes take up to one hour to complete, and the results are compelling, bordering on surreal. “There is no natural lighting circumstance that would render a field falling into darkness – these are manmade views, lit by manmade light,” Kander notes. “Simple planes of colour and texture are brought forward, greatly reducing any reference to nature.”
Finally, Kander debuts a new series of photographic etchings called Treow, depicting dormant trees in winter. The title derives from an Old English word which not only means ‘tree’ but ‘trust’ and ‘promise.’ Here again, ideas of patience and renewal come to the fore. This exhibition encourages pause and contemplation; it is a testament to Kander’s enduring ability to show familiar subjects anew.
After Dark is at Flowers Gallery, London, from 5 September – 11 October.
Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Image Credits:
1. Atlantic Ocean III (Copacabana Beach), Brazil, 2003 © Nadav Kander. Courtesy Flowers Gallery
2. Field XV, Colorado, USA, 2003 © Nadav Kander. Courtesy Flowers Gallery
3. Pacific Ocean IX (Gladstones 4 Fish), Santa Monica, USA, 2001 © Nadav Kander. Courtesy Flowers Gallery
4. Field II (Ford Dealership), Indiana, USA, 2001 © Nadav Kander. Courtesy Flowers Gallery
