Places, Strange and Quiet

by Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders (born 1945) started taking photographs at the age of 7. By the age of 12 he had equipped himself with his own darkroom, and by 17 he had acquired his first Leica. A few years later he was to emerge as a leading light in the New German Cinema movement of the late 1960s, making his feature-length directorial debut with Summer in the City (1970). Throughout his subsequent global acclaim as a director, Wenders has doggedly maintained his life as a photographer. In fact, the two careers have served each other well, as many of his photographs are created while location-scouting for films. His image repertoire of neglected industrial buildings, vacant lots, cemeteries, dilapidated urban niches and courtyards express a mixture of bemusement, melancholy and dislocation. "When you travel a lot, and when you love to just wander around and get lost, you can end up in the strangest spots," Wenders says. "It must be some sort of built-in radar that often directs me to places that are strangely quiet, or quietly strange." These strange and quiet color photographs are accompanied by poetical captions, some of which elucidate what is depicted, others of which lightly supplement with an anecdote (one characteristically deadpan caption accompanies an image of a cowboy clown standing at a rodeo: "It is amazing how many different ideas of 'fun' co-exist in this world" ). Places, Strange and Quiet gathers photographs from 1983 to 2011 in a full panorama of Wenders' photography to date.

Genres: Photography, Art, Nonfiction

124 pages, Hardcover

First published July 31, 2011

About the author

Ernst Wilhelm ("Wim") Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer. He was born in Düsseldorf.

Reviews

[Daisy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"When you travel a lot, and when you love to just wander around and get lost, you can end up in the most unusual spots... I don't know, it must be some sort of built-in radar that often directs me to places that are strangely quiet, or quietly strange."

[Alan]

Caption for the image entitled Cemetery in the City:

One thing I always want to see
in an unknown city or country
are the cemeteries.
They are like an open book.
No, not to learn about the dead,
but about the living.

Wim Wenders is an endless fountain of artistic merit.

[fredi · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
beautiful

[Octavi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maravillosas y tristes fotos. Todo vacío de gente pero lleno de significado.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ironic beauty of (mostly) forgotten detritus, with a few brutalist currencies included. Wenders' photographs of abandondness and bleakness evoke the imagination. Even his photos of the rural scape are fronted by man-made constructs. Like the industrial beauty of Hamburg in his My American Friend; like the black and white abodes of Berliners in Wings of Desire, his images are what draws us to his work; what is happening within the frame? What are the details? What can the viewer extrapolate from the image? One is either enthralled or bored by Wenders. I am of the former ilk.

[Dinyah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fruitful visit to the library.
I've been working on a project related to Wim Wenders recently, so I started to feeling attracted to anything "Wenders". Yes, as you can see, I'm millions steps behind from every one else who has been watching and admiring Wenders's works since ages ago. Please give me some mercy!


Well, back to the history of coincidentally finding this book in the library (which is also part of my office! I'm professionally a very efficient employee!). I was only about to leave the library as I saw the book and since it said "Wenders" on its cover I decided right away, Oh yes, I have to read that one!" Thank God the book turned out to be an easy choice for "Wenders-Novice" like me. It's basically a photo book so there are only beautiful pictures and shorts comments from Wenders (in English), before or after the picture is exposed.


The title of the book tells us nothing but the truth: "Places, strange and quiet". You will see 37 pictures taken by Wenders during his extensive traveling to Armenia, Italy, Japan, Moscow and of course Germany (Wuppertal!). I can't help feeling jealous that Wenders had traveled the world - I assume some places are soooo remote you could never heard of their existence - as early as the year 1983, the year I was only a baby. Ok, I forgot he's Wenders (come on, please remember I'm new to Wenders!).


Do not expect to see cheering (smiling) crowd or amazing scenery of a country. Wenders pictures in this book are all about visiting the unknown, sometimes abandoned, unimaginable stillness. At some points I thought, this could not be any sadder than this nor be any more painful. Take a look at the following pictures, "The Red Bench" (Onomichi, 2005), "Open-Air Screen" (Palermo, 2007) and "Ferris Wheel" (Armenia, 2008). Well, not all pictures are about sadness and loneliness, though. There are also some shots which I thought very "different" because they simply conveyed Wenders' curiosity and admiration of inexplicable phenomena ("Wall with Sink", "Armenian Aplhabet", "Monastery Wall", "Walled In").


Wenders called his pictures "time capsules", which is so true because they could transfer you in an instant not only to another sense of time but also to another world. His comments for the pictures are in my point of view also very unique and build the background of the history. You would understand why was a picture taken and what made it so special to Wenders. Wenders has clearly a good talent of being a narrator. His comments are not that revealing but sufficient to make you pay full attention to the pictures. To me that is a very good point because as a reader of a photo book sometimes I feel exhausted to understand the pictures without any (simple) notes from the photographer. Of course there is always that curatorial texts but...oh my God, could they be more photography-novice-friendly-but-still-sounds-so-curatorial?!



To see some sample pictures of the book you could visit it's publisher website, Hatje Cantz Verlag (http://www.hatjecantz.de/controller.p...) or any Amazon. For a photo book this one is quite petite (and therefore not so expensive). But the issue is there are shots that are too long so they must be folded to fit in the book. Still, I think the book is a good-read for every Wenders enthusiast!

[maha · Rating 3 out of 5]

لا يحوي الكثير، البوم صور عن أماكن غريبة وتعليق شعري عليها، اعجبني كيف يصبح المكان أكثر عمقا عندما تروي عنه حادثة أو قصة حدثت به
على سبيل المثال، شارع تخيل به كاوبوي، حتى سمع عن الشاحنة التي صدمت العمود. منذ ذاك الوقت اصبح لا يرى الا العمود المائل
ذكرني بالعمود المائل في شارعنا الذي صدمته أمي وهي تحاول أن تري السائق كيف يخرج السيارة من الموقف :)