After their work The Great Unreal, based on a road trip through the US, which the artists subsequently distorted beyond recognition in their studio, the Swiss duo Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs hit the road once again in 2013. In their most recent, major project they take us on a trip by car to the East. The journey began in Zurich and led through the Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia. Through regions in a state of transition—territories that people from the West know very little about. This series forms an imaginative counterpart to The Great Unreal. In contrast to the cultural and visual output of the US, which is present everywhere, the artists had barely any distinct notions of the “East.” The photographs and films that they made during their journey serve as the starting point for a series of works—some real, some surreal—in which images of their experiences are joined with those constructed from memory and the imagination.
Using analogue documentary media, such as 16mm film and large-format plate cameras, Onorato & Krebs playfully draw on the myth of the road trip and the exoticism of the East. Searching for the contemporary central Asian fairytale, they broaden the terrain of the documentary. In their work they understand travel as an experimental process, in which the creative impetus of chance is welcome. The resulting images, films, and installation-based interventions are as much constructs as documentation. In a grotesque manner, the idea of something becomes as prominent as its reality; its potential past and future are concentrated in a single moment.
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