Because you think you know this photographer? You have seen him AND looked at his Internet site countless times, you have read his interviews, you have heard him speak at either the university in Hannover or the one in Dortmund. Oliver Mark is a star of photography: He has made more than one distinguished woman sprawl upon the ground so he could take her with his black box. And, yes, he takes her whether she wants it or not!

The German aristocracy cherishes him, the celebrities adore him, the politicians seek him out … and, voilà, this is the image he offers: A photograph of a frigate floating atop silver waters, taken some place in the North Sea by a photographer who didn’t do his military service, who is not a war photographer: Is this a vision of war or a vision of peace? Why did Oliver chose this image? “To break our visual habits … including mine. Because I am also curious about what I am not, above all else that what I have not yet done.”

I listen to Oliver and I look at his photographs and what strikes my mind is that phrase from Anaïs Nin: “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

Oliver’s work is currently on display at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz. “Aus den Trümmern kriecht das Leben”, Fotografien von Karl Otto Götz  runs from  February 23 2014 to May 4, 2014.

CLAIR Gallery will be presenting work from Oliver Mark at ART PARIS.