The stage dissolves – tragic figures transform into elusive, singular beings. A fascinating new photographic universe.
The OPERA series transports us into a world beyond the boundaries of traditional theatre – raw, distorted, in constant transformation. Walter Gerstung does not stage theatrical scenes in the conventional sense, but instead creates visual reinterpretations of iconic tragic figures from the stage – not as classical representations, but as dissolved, fragmented beings in a perpetual state of metamorphosis.
Whether it’s Faust, Oedipus, King Lear, or Rigoletto – each of these characters embodies existential conflict: guilt, madness, power, helplessness. Gerstung gives them new, overwhelming visual identities that continuously shift in the chaos of water. Through the lens of a high-speed camera, these once clearly defined figures of world literature become surreal creatures – dissolved, distorted, deformed by both internal and external forces.
As in his previous series Skulls and Princess, each work begins with an acrylic painting – dark, expressive, bearing Gerstung’s signature affinity for the grotesque. But this painting serves merely as a matrix for controlled chaos: within a black water basin, an unpredictable interplay of movement, light, and reflection unfolds. The camera captures this fleeting moment – and in a single thousandth of a second, a unique work is created, never to be reproduced again.
The resulting motifs appear at times powerful and sharply defined, at others ghostlike and blurred – like memories slipping through one’s grasp. The classical stage becomes a fluid medium that fixes nothing, holding everything in a constant state of transformation. These dramatic icons lose their familiar roles and take on a new, enigmatic visual language. This visual dissolution becomes a metaphor for inner fragmentation, the fragility of the self, and the inevitability of change.
Walter Gerstung succeeds in tearing theatre away from its stage and translating it into an experimental visual medium. The result is a series of visual tragedies – raw, archaic, and imbued with timeless power. Not retellings, but radical redefinitions of ancient narratives.