What is Love?

Only rarely have images of decline and decay so mesmerized us with their fascination and terror. Damaged butterflies and beetles as well as the faces of younger and older people on whom life has left its mark emerge out of a dark, Caravaggesque background. With their enormous presence and their staring eyes directed towards the viewer, they seem to demand a dialogue. Wilted or almost withered flowers in vases and stuffed animals represent exemplary memento mori motifs.

These extraordinary photographs shot with an analogue camera depict simple motifs or scenes, which the artist has used chiaroscuro effects and sometimes theatrical compositional devices to stage in a highly aesthetic manner. The photographer deals with the concept of the gaze, for example, through the sparingly arranged images, which stimulate viewers to from associations. She steers her audience’s gaze in a particular direction, simultaneously charging the image with meaning, for example, when a pregnant woman looks angrily and perplexedly into a corner, thus providing an ideal object for our projections.

«With light as her most valuable ally, Lustenberger depicts beings and silences, atmospheres and scraps of matter – skin, fur, feathers, wood, fruit, flowers and objects on which she seems to bestow a soul, to tell mysterious, whispered stories. She is spectacularly successful at creating an enigmatic universe that incites the spirit to dream.» Julia Hountou