Oliver Boeberg

One of the most interesting artistic personalities of his generation, Oliver Boberg has, since the late 80s, been making small models of urban settings, which he then photographs in such a way that their model quality almost totally disappears. The reality presented in his photographs of underpasses and flat-roofed buildings is one of a non-location, a place which is so familiar that it could be anywhere and nowhere. Boberg’s videos from 2002 and 2003 show nocturnal landscape views which seem to be based on film scenarios, but these works, too, reproduce scale models. The 16mm films transferred to DVD show eerie situations which are devoid of people: a foreboding cliff or a country road seen at twilight during a dreary rainstorm. The model of this non-location here becomes a detail of a story which is rich in allusions, charged with a cinematic suspense and fearful expectation. This publication brings together for the first time the photographs, video stills, and drawings by this young German artist.