Oliver Boberg studied History of Art at the University of Wurzburg and Fine Art at Nürnburg Art College.
His ‘locations’ are deserted cement spaces, familiar scenes of the alienated modern city space, where human life is conspicuous by its absence. They are places that everyone recognises in an instant, but no one knows from where exactly. His works evoke memories of streets and squares that we pass so frequently that they are etched onto our minds as archetype.
Despite the seemingly straight recognisable aspect to Boberg´s representations, in reality they are careful manipulations, bogus pieces of visual information that deceive our mental expectation. For these hyper-realistic ‘locations’ are the pure invention of the artist himself: constructed small-scale models with no original that are photographed and not further used. Their believability is therefore eerie and disturbing – their exact sense of place a sham. Boberg achieves a strangely compelling “reality” that is both recognisable and unknowable; banal and universal that present authenticity as something ambivalent.
His capacity to evoke what we may call a ´generic modernism´ lies essentially in the ever-present nature of these architectural forms in Western cities. His attention for detail and the extreme precision with which he has recreated these decrepit buildings, recall the painful realisation that these intended symbols of Western self-idealisation are not immune to the processes of ageing. The abstract beauty of these constructed locations casts ultimately a different light on our modern legacy. The images of wet cement, faded colour and disturbed earth create an alternative aesthetic world that is more at home in an emotional, atmospheric environment than in a real city.
