"Vexierbild #9"

UDK Berlin

gelatin silver print (analogue)

signed, titled, dated, numbered on verso

In 2018 Barbara Wolff decided herself to present works on the social network Instagram and published black-and-white photographs under her account @barbara_wolff_berlin, which obviously were taken exclusively with her smartphone. Her posts through Berlin and other cities quickly reached a large number of followers on Instagram. In her METROPOLIS series, she focuses on the city of Berlin and its people. The series grew so much that the idea of a publication and a presentation logically followed. After producing an analogue negative from a digital file, Barbara Wolff develops classic silver gelatin prints herself on her favourite matte photographic paper.

In her almost daily wanderings, preferably on foot, Barbara Wolff takes photographs that have a metaphysical dimension, in which she captures the essence of a moment, regardless how fleeting. Her work goes beyond merely documenting an objective reality. When recording decisive moments Wolff demonstrates an unusual sense of composition that is enhanced by a heightened sensitivity enabling her to reveal different facets of life – or consciousness, one could say – in relation to her subject matter.
Her artistic vocabulary is rooted in humanistic photography, but in my opinion, it could also be ascribed to magical realism, given the subtlety of her work. Barbara Wolff shows us the world as it is, but at the same time almost every image conveys an overarching, sympathetic, respectful, sometimes visionary and often utopian dimension.
(Marc Barbey)