S U R FAC E T E N S I O N

NIKLAS ZIMMER

Surface Tension Niklas Zimmer

Surface Tension is a material product (21 photographic prints) from an ongoing multimedia collaboration between Niklas Zimmer and Michaelis MFA student Bryony Purvis. The project began as a collaborative exploration of the experience of estrangement. Conceptually combining aspects of performance and photography, the collaboration became focussed on the estrangement of photographer and subject in relation to one another, as well as to the image: human forms are suspended and reflected in a moreor-less abstract interplay of the more-or-less tangible media of water, light and the photographic image. Both authors (imager & model), in questioning their need for authorisation, experience the power to capture, and the power to perform. The breathless ambience in these images betrays a tension between conflicting desires: the desire to maintain the self and the desire to break free from it. Set in a strange and silent terrain, Surface Tension captures the agency and the vulnerability of both viewer and subject.
Dylan Culhane

working on set

Surface Tension - 9306 C-Type Print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper archivally mounted on Dibond; 40 x 50cm (5 + 2AP) and 80 x 100cm (3 + 2AP)

Surface Tension - 9628 C-Type Print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper archivally mounted on Dibond; 50 x 40cm (5 + 2AP) and 100 x 80cm (3 + 2AP)

Surface Tension - 9654 C-Type Print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper archivally mounted on Dibond; 50 x 40cm (5 + 2AP) and 100 x 80cm (3 + 2AP)

Surface Tension - 9546 C-Type Print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper archivally mounted on Dibond; 40 x 50cm (5 + 2AP) and 80 x 100cm (3 + 2AP)

Surface Tension - 9590 C-Type Print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper archivally mounted on Dibond; 50 x 40cm (5 + 2AP) and 100 x 80cm (3 + 2AP)

arrangement for installation in relative sizes

Surface Tension - 9303 C-Type Print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper archivally mounted on Dibond; 50 x 40cm (5 + 2AP) and 100 x 80cm (3 + 2AP)

Surface Tension - 9477 C-Type Print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper archivally mounted on Dibond; 50 x 40cm (5 + 2AP) and 100 x 80cm (3 + 2AP)

Surface Tension - 9680 C-Type Print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper archivally mounted on Dibond; 50 x 40cm (5 + 2AP) and 100 x 80cm (3 + 2AP)

arrangement for installation in relative sizes

Niklas Zimmer is a German-South African artist and musician working in photography, sound and performance. He was born in Bangkok, Thailand in 1975, went to prep school in Maseru, Lesotho, and matriculated in Bad Honnef, Germany. He lives and works in Cape Town. He holds an Honours degree in Fine Art from University of Cape Town and a BA in education from University of Cologne. After three years of being Head of Department, teaching Visual Arts at the German International School in Cape Town, he is now part-time lecturing in theory and discourse of art, critical studies, as well as giving workshops in video, sound and photography at tertiary institutions in Cape Town and Stellenbosch. He also works as an independent photographer and drummer, as well as being employed by the Centre for Popular Memory (UCT) as digitisation manager and audio specialist. He is engaged in research for his masters dissertation on Jazz Photography in Cape Town. As Is, his musical ensemble with Manfred Zylla, Garth Erasmus and Brendon Bussy performs free-form music in various cultural venues and contexts in Cape Town (Dada South?, Breytenbach Sentrum, Edge of Wrong, Alliance Francaise, Erdmann contemporary, Serialworks, Gradex10).

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