“always wandering”: Photography lecturer Victor S. Brigola exhibits in the vhs-photogalerie

Victor S. Brigola travels a lot, both professionally and privately, but never without a camera. As a professional, experienced architectural photographer, he documents buildings on commission, but in his freelance work he explores new ideas of his own. He discovers facades in passing. House walls that consist of words, shop windows, signs and surfaces and are characterised by their individual design. The combination of the name and typography of a pub gets to the heart of the matter: the building may have closed long ago, but the image still tells of times gone by and better days. On the other hand, the motif of a Parisian patisserie surprises with its bright colours, as contemporary street art contrasts with the old wooden façade. The discovery on the roadside becomes an aesthetically filtered still life in the deliberately chosen section of the picture square. What might appear to be a chance find in the individual picture becomes a concept in the sequence. Brigola’s trained eye crystallises the essential elements into a tableau, a symbol of human communication. His work revolves around an inventory of signs which, in their diversity and temporal conditionality, resemble an anthropological research trip in an urban environment.

With the ‘always wandering’ exhibition, the photographer has retained his traditional field of work, but expanded it to include the allure of words, writing and signs. In the spirit of his ongoing curiosity about the expressive forms of the urban, ‘always wandering’ can also be complemented by ‘always wondering’. The works in the exhibition are published alongside other images in the photo book ‘fünfundzwanzig’.

Victor S. Brigola realises his passion for architecture and archaeology in his work as a photographer and lecturer at the Merz Akademie and other institutions. His photographs bear witness to a personal expression that incorporates the atmosphere, history, local reference and use of the building. Brigola’s work has been shown in numerous exhibitions. He lives and works in Stuttgart.