DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM proudly presents Ouvertüre, the first solo exhibition by artist-photographer Lukas Städler. This debut showcase opens with an evening reception on July 5, 2024, from 5–9 PM and runs until August 10, 2024.
Ouvertüre delves into optimistic realms of intimacy, community, and identity. It features an amalgamation of new works alongside an autobiographical survey, offering a profound introduction to Städler’s recent artistic journey and personal evolution.
Städler’s photographic practice is a dance between the personal and the intimate. His compelling compositions blend staged settings with spontaneous captures, revealing deeply personal narratives of contemporary life. Through his lens, viewers glimpse his subjects’ authentic realities and relationships—individuals from within his community. Städler’s work isn’t just observation; it’s a deeply empathetic exploration of how his subjects live and love.
The exhibition also spotlights images from Städler’s ongoing project Hain, a two-year documentation of Berlin’s cruising spots. These pastoral yet charged photographs encapsulate these encounters’ raw tension and transient nature.
Lukas Städler @lokkas
Lukas Städler’s (Born 1992 in Buchholz in der Nordheide, Germany / Lives and works in Berlin, Germany) artistic practice materializes a personal, often intimate exploration of the world that surrounds him and the people in it. The medium of photography allows him to capture fleeting moments or overlooked details, bringing into focus what would otherwise remain hidden. Between staging and snapshots, Städler’s photographic works and series convey a personal approach to individual realities of life. He engages with people in his community, listens to them, and shows through his photos how they love and live. This focus was already established in Lukas Städler’s educational path, which led from fashion design to fine art, where he was able to pursue his interest in contemporary aesthetics as an expression of queer identity in the medium of photography and develop a visual language for it.
Epilogue for Overture
“You’ve just seen the central part, because the central part, that was you, and you’re holding the epilogue in your hands.
You were able to see for yourself, you’ve strolled through three acts and mused.
How many dramas might be taking place here, which stories are being told, a moment of silence, intimacy amid the howl of the metropolis, a fairy tale by the pond, or an elsewhere insight?
The Overture is meant for arrival before things get started in earnest, for understanding the setting, the protagonists of a spectacle, the dramatic potential, the pathos of a wordless moment, and the expectation of an afterwards.
We will begin in a moment, but we are still in the Overture, we recognize the surroundings, the props that have not yet been put into play, but things might get started in a moment.”
The above excerpt is from an essay on the exhibition by Jan Koslowski.
July 5–August 10, 2024 – Opening: Friday, July 5, 5–9 PM
DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM
Linienstraße 23, 10178 Berlin, Germany +49 30 2434 2462 dittrich-schlechtriem.com
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