Biografia
Below eye level
The photographs of Claudius Daum
Claudius Daum had already spent many years as a professional photographer working for a variety of media outlets – and had even owned a gallery – before starting afresh and going freelance once and for all. Until that point he had tended to keep the two activities separate for purely practical reasons – if your job involves spending every waking hour taking pictures to order, you are hardly likely to find the energy or the enthusiasm to express yourself artistically in the same medium. Yet Claudius Daum quickly managed to hit a creative stride unique to him: owing to his idiosyncratic technique of always taking his pictures from below eye level, the camera on a horizontal surface which appears in the image, the subject is viewed from a lower-than-usual angle, which in some of his work is quite pronounced. He also has a tendency to involve reflections giving the impression of several viewing planes on a collision course – top and bottom are sometimes hard to tell apart.
The artist deploys this technique to explore fundamental – existential, even – issues of observation and perception.
