Mat Hennek is a German photographer who had a successful career in commercial portrait and product photography before moving into the art genre.
His recently released book Silent Cities coincidentally came out during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic lockdown across Europe but in fact the images were all made over the last seven years during normal human social and economic activity. Hennek visited several cities worldwide for this series, including Tokyo, Dallas, Shanghai and Paris, making unplanned walks through the cities whilst consciously avoiding the usual tourist areas.
The urban landscapes are almost devoid of people, save for the occasional exception: a lone cyclist; a group of half concealed travellers. Perspective is most often flattened, frequently cutting out the sky and sometimes the foreground too, creating a barrier to the viewer, preventing them from feeling a part of this landscape. In some images the pattern of the architecture removes all sense of perspective, leaving the viewer disorientated and confused.
Prior to this series, Hennek produced a series entitled Woodlands, which are images of groups of trees completely filling the frame, silent, almost monochromatic, flattened in perspective. I think Hennek has approached the urban environment in the same way; his colours are subdued, often feature greenery, and there is a sensitivity to texture and material and their juxtapositions. Forms in both series are often pared down to simple compositional elements.
The result of Hennek’s approach is the impression that the cities are waiting for people to appear and carry out their usual business, as if they are on hold. There is a sense of the uncanny, of time having stopped. The overall sense is of beauty in the simplicity of being able to view these structures unobstructed but also of silence and stillness, like holding one’s breath.
References:
Hennek, M. (2020) Silent Cities. Göttingen: Steidl
mathennek.com/works/silent-cities/ [Accessed 15 August 2020]
Rhonda's Landscape blog 