image by
Ute Behrend
Ute Behrend´s photographs of her children are silent photographs. They are not shouting at you and you have to look twice to discover their beauty, but it is there, very individual and one of its kind. Ute Behrend´s photographs come in the disguise of family snapshots. But this is just a disguise: behind the obvious, there is a second layer. Ute Behrend uses little formal details that relate, and this is evident within the diptychs, to other images, the frames outside the frame. Most of the times we react to photographs merely intuitively, but something in Ute Behrend´s work forces me to halt, and I start to listen to an inner voice whispering, commenting her images.
(That what I am told, I will keep for myself.)
Ute Ute Behrend´s photographs are depicting little moments in a life of a family that are very everyday and very special. And, as close as these images are, there is always a sort of distance that says: I am respecting the privacy of my children. In Ute Behrend´s photographs I sense the knowledge, that the other always stays a stranger, even if you love him more than anybody. To struggle for the right balance between closeness and distance might be the biggest sign of love.
