Claus Rohland: It is the traveller only who is foreign

“Dream visions” or “psychedelic images from the Middle East”. These are both apt descriptions of the works of art on display at The David Collection from 14 October. One might also say that they reflect ‘the beauty of decay’. In any case, this is an extremely unusual art photo exhibition. Certainly, for this museum.

What were once snapshots taken by the Danish artist Claus Rohland on two different trips around Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria undertaken in the ‘70s have now, after decades of exposure to humidity and fluctuating temperatures, metamorphosed into what looks like something from another world. Distorted, running and bleeding colours, crystallisations and heat cracks have transformed the original scenes, which depicted an unconventional selection of moments to begin with, and pulled them into the realm of the surreal, the transcendental and the metaphysical. Now, viewers must journey into these realms, establishing their own perspectives on what they see. What is real? What is illusion and imagination?

34 images, enlarged and cropped by Claus Rohland, are exhibited alongside a ‘slide film’ featuring a soundtrack, ‘Futo’ from the album ‘Shifts’ by the young, Iranian composer, Shida Shahabi. The exhibition, which runs until 9 April 2023, is curated by museum curator Peter Wandel and accompanied by a small but exquisite artistic publication.