Harvest, 2007

Harvest, 2007, by Dutch photographer, Wout Berger, was published in the artist's monograph Like Birds. He is interested in contaminated sites that he often photographs as idyllic landscapes. He says, of his work, "the European landscape becomes more and more a nature-culture landscape where nature intervenes with human action. In my photography, I pronounce no value judgment; I experience culture as a niche within nature. Correctly the passage between culture and nature is interesting, especially those spots where nature reconquers areas on the cultural landscape. This, I observe at a small scale. Thus bits of nature can arise where cultivated landscape lies fallow awaiting a construction project." Berger's images capture a keen interest in the details of such landscapes. And, yet, by omitting references to scale and landmarks such as the horizon, houses, people, or cars, he allows an abstract element to creep into the images. This print was produced in conjunction with Aperture's exhibition Nature as Artifice: New Dutch Landscape in Photography and Video Art, coinciding with the four-hundredth anniversary of the arrival of Henry Hudson to New York Harbor aboard the Dutch vessel Halve Maen.

C-Print
Image Size: 14 7/8 x 18 3/8 inches
Paper Size: 16 x 20 inches
Edition of 20 + 4 AP
Signed and numbered by the artist

Wout Berger (b. 1941, Ridderkerk, Netherlands) has had exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, New York; Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, Paris; Steidlijk Museum, Amsterdam; Huis Marseille, Amsterdam; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and during Mois de la Photo, Montreal. Wout Berger’s series, Poisoned Landscape, published in 1992, focused on contaminated soils in the Netherlands. The focal point of this project was deceptive appearances: heavily polluted places can often look idyllic. He lives and works in Uitdam, Netherlands.