Hetz, Florian: The Matter of Absence

Bruno Gmünder Portfolio 1000

The art of Florian Hetz is provocative and stirs up controversy. His explicit imagery on the one hand and his approach of showing by not showing on the other hand make his work unique. His first book "The Matter of Absence" is a masterful debut, stunning and polarizing.

"Through photography, Hetz explores the human body, the beauty in the ugly, and the ugliness in beauty. As his most important sense, he describes seeing since an eye disease runs in his family that might eventually cause him to lose his eyesight. "I suppose that knowing you might lose something makes it more precious to you," Hetz explains. The book ""The Matter of Absence"" is Hetz s first publication. Body parts like in a peep show, caught in an action, caught in a singular moment. Seemingly familiar, and yet very random: Due to the lack of identity, due to the anonymity, it could be the high school crush, the neighbor, the priest, the ex lover, the best friend, or the online flirt. By showing very little of the surrounding, the close-ups offer a wide field of storytelling. The narrative happens rather in the head than on the photo. What leads to that particular moment becomes equally important as the moment itself. The absence of identity in times of selfies. Designer Stefano Pilati puts it like this: ""In his authenticity, Hetz s talent maniacally explores the moment between the photographer-as artist, witness, obsessive-and the subject. He interprets the body as a quintessential sex object through simple, domestic gestures, producing a body of work that is far removed from the spirit of "entertainment" and "staging" in current forms of social-media visualizations."" A stunning, unique debut.