Luis J. Soltmann

1948 Born in Warin, in the Federal German State of Mecklenburg
1972 Began studies in Visual Communication at the Folkwang-Schule Essen. Professors included Schubert and Otto Steinert
1982 „ARTE ACTUAL“ photo series at the Cabildo Insular de Lanzarote y Ministerio de Cultura; published panorama photographs in the German magazine “STERN”
1986 Photo, film, and video documentation of Cesar Manriques‘s influence In Lanzarote, Tenerife and Madrid; publications with Belserverlag
2004 “PROJECKT MARKTANTEILE” exhibition at the Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum
2007 Participated in the Photolucida festival, Portland U.S.A.; Henze/Soltmann exhibition at the Galerie Haus Isenburg
2008 Major art exhibition at the NRW museum kunst palast Düsseldorf

Against the Thoughtlessness of Perception

Photos appear to simulate visual perception almost to perfection while simultaneously eliminating vision‘s fleetingness. Often, it seems as if only a good photograph can present us with a true image of the objects of our world, despite the fact that we see them time and again with our own eyes.

Instead of simply filing them under the heading of „optical phenomena“ Luis J. Soltmann has maintained an acute sense for such appearances. His photographs testify to a wonder whose frequent tacitness is the source of their allure. Early on, his sensitivity to such factors prompted him to produce them in situ and to experiment with phenomena. Soltmann knows that visual experience hesitates at the border of the explicit; where the understanding demands security, the eye reveals ambiguity. Reason enough to question visual perception.

Soltmann is a systematic worker preoccupied with multiple questions at once. He maintains several small series that he returns to again and again and that will probably accompany him for the rest of his life. For even as science is better able to explain the problems of perception, its phenomena, and the poetry that lies within them, remain.