AUSBAU—used often in relation to construction—is to develop and/or expand with the goal of improvement. In this 2009 a/w collection, designer Raphael Hauber and photographer Heinz Peter Knes expand their disciplines to construct an abstract art form that is free from any association of reality with symbols.For Raphael, he cuts the photographs to the point that they can no longer lay claim to picturing reality. Such fragmentation allows the pictures to free themselves and assume their own reality—a sense of Concrete Art, the abstractionist movement of the 1930’s in which lines and colors are “concrete” in themselves.
For Heinz, the cutting is like challenging a sacred cow. But the cuts, shreds, and holes also symbolize the end of an era in analog photography, which has been supplanted by digital photography—a transition that he contrasts to the emergence of electronic music, from analog to digital. In the collection, therefore he incorporates a layer of each into every image.
Heinz Peter Knes was born 1969 in Gemünden am Main of Bavaria, Germany. Now based in Berlin, the photographer has been published in numerous magazines since graduating from Fachhochschule Dortmund in 1999. Although at times considered a fashion photographer, Heinz rejects the label in that he is captivated by everything that surrounds the clothing.
Born in 1977, Raphael Hauber studied clothing technology at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences and Fashion Design at the Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences. Raphael founded his epynomous label in 2003 and is currently based in Eppelheim, southwest Germany.
Photo 2009 a/w collection “Ausbau” Copyright Raphael Hauber.
Slideshow 2009 a/w collection “Ausbau” Copyright Raphael Hauber.
