The poignant moment of perfection- between the completion of a space and the arrivial of its first users- is what attracts German
photographer Julian Faulhaber. In his examination of these
architectural twilight zones, he uses large-format exposures of up to 20 seconds, which results in saturated colors and a nearly abstract sense of space. Adding to the clinical impression is the available light at such sights, typically fluorescent, and the
photographer’s disorienting perspectives. Of the various
basketball courts, supermarkets, and gas stations on view, the only clue to the nature of these spaces is often the title, as with Lot (2009, above). In contrast to many of his contemporaries, most of Faulhaber’s images are not digitally processed. But as with the work of Andreas Gursky and Thomas Demand, these views of utilitarian structures can be read as a kind of social commentary: They reveal the exotic, oily-slick surface of reality, waiting to be despoiled.