Dörte Eissfeldt

In Dörte Eißfeldt’s (b. 1950) images, things aren’t always what they seem, and nothing stays what it is for too long. Rather than assuming verisimilitude, photography, in her work, becomes synonymous with transformation. Equipped with a tender, poetic, and ever-curious gaze, Eißfeldt explores our surrounding world, human bodies, and the medium itself. A snowball melts in one image; in another it seems to turn rock-like and celestial. A knife blade appears as a megalith, surfaces shift in texture, skin turns metallic, then fragile and porous. Again and again, Eißfeldt explores how photography questions itself, transforms, and pushes the limits of perception. The title of the exhibition refers to a quote by Eißfeldt, in which she writes: “Photos are like whales that can carry entire islands.” The exhibition gives space to this archipelago of islands—carried by the photo whales: islands of meaning, memory, similarity, or the impression of a moment. Spanning over five decades, and encompassing key works from her personal archive, large-scale series, as well as unpublished and never-before-shown sketches, artist books, and notepads, C/O Berlin presents a long-awaited major institutional exhibition of her work. Curated by Boaz Levin.