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Layers of Landscape
Three Questions to Leon Krige

1-54 asked three questions to South African artist Leon Krige on GALLERY AOP booth, at 1-54 London 2015.

Leon Krige is a photographer and architect documenting the urban topographies of major cosmopolitan cities. In his photographic practice, Krige uses high-resolution photography predominately at night. Working with long exposures, a single shot can take up to an hour to expose, during which time, the city revolves around the fixed lens. Nevertheless, his measured technique elucidates an exactitude of various nuanced luminosities: incandescent domestic interiors and sodium orange hues for infrastructure and control.

“I’m very interested in cities in transition, where there is a lot of change. The entire world is changing somehow. I work at night, it reveals layers of change, layers of landscapes, maybe light that we don’t see by day. Nocturnal time is my playtime.”

– Leon Krige

Documenting the transitional urbanity of Johannesburg since the 1980s, he has recently started working with other megacities including Cape Town in South Africa; and Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Investigating the history, development, and deterioration of these cities, Krige explores the topography and metamorphosis from high vantage points. It is at this vantage, that he often finds himself face to face with the stark reality of societies in transition: entire communities dispersed outwards, as developers populate the skyline.

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