scientific series
Win LabudasWall Pictures
by Nadja Labuda (2001)
As a daughter of Win Labuda, from childhood on I was able to accom-
pany him on his photographic explorations in cities around the world.
My fascination with art on the one hand and my father's photographic
work on the other can be dated back to those early years.
Over the years I was fortunate to be in continual interchange with him
about art and artistic thinking; he shaped my way of seeing and awake-
ned my passion for modern art. During my studies at university, I learned
to restrain my passion in favour of looking at and judging art applying
scientific criteria.
As an art historian, I have concentrated particularly on 20th century art
and, as a consequence, the photography of this period as well.
This text comes from the pen of a viewer in whose heart the same blood
flows as in the photographer's. Therefore, rational observation and judg-
ment are coupled with the deep affection that I, a daughter, feel for my
father's work.
Introduction
In the present volume of my father's photographic work, the wall is the
central subject. Infinitely many facets of its visual manifestation and pos-
sible ways of seeing are shown here. Sometimes it seems bare and almost
banal; only at a closer look does the chosen image show artistic dimensi-
ons approaching the great art works of the past century. Sometimes it
also appears as the bearer of unknown signs of rain, time, decay and re-
storation. Thus, the wall is mankind's drawing board and forbidden
scratchpad of feelings large and small.The development of new materials
has entailed that not every wall can be considered a wall in the old sense.
Only „old walls„ are still made of the arduously hewn granite or the red
bricks so familiar to us Europeans. In this sense, wall for Labuda also in-
cludes gates, doors or any spatial object that a message can be put on.
The wall surrounding us everyday, that we pass by every morning and
evening, that is so familiar to us that we do not even notice it, is transfor-
med by the eye of the artist into a living counter-image, into a mirror of
our lives, thus becoming a sign of the lives and times.
The chosen photographic frames are closely tied to my father's personal
and artistic history, with his travels and places of trust and well-being.
They are his very own focus. The familiarity and commonplaceness of the
chosen images may lead one to only glance at them, as with a well-
known face that one believes to know already. Before discussing individu-
1 -
Wall Moon at the River,
F 019
2 -
HealedWall,
F 075
3 -
WallWave,
F 021
1
