Tales of subjective sensory experiences

Morten Løberg explores the sensuous experience of our surroundings based on the photographic apparatus. But it is not a robotic gaze, however, that formulates an image. It is a human being with a subjectively rooted view of the world. The «pure» photography, which Løberg represents, cultivates properties of the photographic medium subject to the photographer's intentions with the image. It, therefore, makes sense to talk about content as a credible and authentic expression of the artist's personal gaze. It is the photographer's «self» that constitutes the final instance for the meaning of the image.

There are so many impressions that pass by. The impressions that Løberg sticks to as a visual artist have a form that differs from most photographs we encounter in the press, in advertising, on Instagram or Facebook, or in photos that document actual conditions, whether it is a picture of an Olympian crossing the finish line or a photograph that document that a weld seam has been performed correctly.

Morten Løberg's pictures have a form we can identify and which is perceived as so significantly interesting that we have to dwell on form itself. The pictures tell us about the importance he devotes to organizing the visual experience in a way that can hold the attention we as viewers direct towards the image. Choosing a place from where to see the world also involves taking a stand in relation to what one devotes one's consideration. The place from where Løberg makes his observations determines what falls within the point of view and the possibilities the scene provides for creating form. He moves far away or close to the subject, looking from above and below, straight on and at an angle – with the result that the composition in the picture does not solidify in a fixed pattern. The diversity and richness of lines, surfaces, and structure are transformed into a picture space. The images in this book dwell primarily on how the world emerges in the form of visual signals, which use light as their messenger.

Løberg's art rests on a notion of art that perceives the artistic image not primarily as a narrative about – or a description of – a situation, an event, a thing, or a case, it is an image that shows us something without telling. It is not the immediate recognition of a story in the picture that arouses curiosity. The few clues he gives us tell about an individual view of the world at the same time as the image opens up to activate our own thoughts arouses emotions and penetrates into a deeper symbolic layer of content.

For Løberg's generation of photographers, it was important to distinguish between different photographic practices, where the art photographer established a free workspace where there was no other client than the artist himself. In artistic production, there should be different rules of the game than if the photographer worked on assignment, rules defined by the artist. This is a perception of the artistic imagery which in recent years has been met by a demand for artists to give a verbal, clear expression of their own opinions and ideological point of view. It is certainly possible to analyze images taken by Løberg in other genres, such as the documentary genre, which can tell us something about both a political and an ideological foundation, but based on the tradition he stands for this is a trivialization and a delimitation of the possibilities the artistic photograph has to evoke emotions and feelings in the viewer.

The images in this book are notifications about an artist's subjective sensory experience. The pictures show a view of the world characterized by the ability to concentrate on the artist's aesthetic experience of what he sees. In this lies a notion that there are special sensory memories we can relate to the experience of matter as it emerges based on the conditions of the artist's subjective choice, the camera settings, and in the form of elaborate enlargements and finished prints. When one considers Løberg’s original prints they have a perfection that reveals a master craftsman who is concerned with the unique print as a material object, with its material qualities intact. Rarely is the light so white and transparent, and the darkness so black and immersive impenetrable, as here.

The simple form connects Løberg to a tradition that groups him with a whole generation of aspiring Norwegian photographic artists in the 1970s and in the decades that followed, partly inspired by American and European art photographers sharing a common love for showing nature in constant change, and where human intervention transforms the environment into hybrids of nature and culture, which manifest itself with intense internal tension.

In a picture from the lido in Venice, taken in 2009, the beach appears with a ragged surface in gray and black and where we suspect that seagrass has been washed in, while the sea and sky almost merge, like a gray fog. On the edge of the shoreline is a figure. An encounter between sky, sea, and beach is such an established convention in art that when a human being also appears in the picture, it is easy to invent a story about the little man facing an overwhelming, large and all-consuming nature – a basic theme in art that incorporates the great story of man's elusive place in the cosmos. However, the image of the man on the lido does not quite agree with such an interpretation. The figure in the picture bends slightly as if the man has seen something in the sand that draws his attention away from the endless sea of ​​fog that spreads out over the sky. Attention is directed away from the sky and down to the ground. There is something there, on the ground, that is so interesting that it attracts all the attention. This attraction to small details, no matter where they are, is a recurring motif in Løberg´s work and helps to anchor his perception of the motif in something concrete and earthly.

Within that segment of photography where Løberg has unfolded as an artist, black-and-white photography has a special position. The simple explanation for this is to point out that color photography came into general use only in recent times. The more complex explanation is that Løberg professes himself to a tradition where the pictorial means are reduced to the limit, and if color is to be introduced in the picture, there must be a meaning that surpasses creating spectacular, striking, and festive imagery. The yellow line in a picture has its meaning as the centerline of a paved road, but perhaps first and foremost as an almost rude dissonance and rupture with the dark asphalt.

There is a material presence in Løberg's pictures, which gives them sober objectivity, which I perceive as the pictures' foremost property and quality. It is a form of objectivity that allows the viewer to work with the images without being deafened by theatrical image effects, visual noise that distracts attention, anecdotal content, and intrusive narratives, but on the contrary, encourages concentration and immersion.

ØIVIND STORM BJERKE

Øivind Storm Bjerke is a professor in art history at the University of Oslo and former director of the Norwegian Museum of Photography/Preus Museum.