Esther Teichmann

“Hot Salt Medusa,” Esther Teichmann, Carol Mavor, Chantal Faust, 14 March – 11 April, 2015

In Search of Lightning

Film Stills from In Search of Lightning, 2012, dimensions variable.

Fractal Scars, Salt Water and Tears

A giant camera stands on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. Its blue and yellow exterior echoes the city’s fairground nostalgia. She expects it to be shut, but finds a woman wrapped in a blanket behind the box-office entrance. Reciting its history, she takes V through black double doors into the camera’s belly. V walks into darkness, eyes adjusting to the change in light whilst the woman describes the apparatus’ mechanisms. The lens in the centre of its conical roof focuses the image outdoors onto the mirror, projecting it upon the concave circular dish in the room’s middle. By the time the rehearsed explanation is complete, her eyes have adjusted. The eggshell-lacquered projection bowl now holds the most exquisite image. Tiny crystalline waves break silently over jagged cliffs, water droplets spray in minute detail. Its circumference would fit a curled-up body almost exactly. She could sleep here, waves crashing upon skin, dancing across eyelids, covering her with its continual circular motion. She will come back here one day and he will stand behind her. Together they will inhale the image in silence, breath suspended, waiting for that moment when the late afternoon sun hits mute waves, flooding everything inside her in an overexposed glow of too much light.

–

She thinks of the bodies and skins that have been as familiar as his is becoming, the strangeness of intimacy. She remembers the first time he undressed, her breath stuck inside her, gaze falling upon the fractal scar that spread across his chest. It begins at the base of his throat, in that soft indentation between two arteries, glistening a coral pink, like the inside of the seashell she holds to her ear to fall asleep. From this tender point it spreads out and down like the fi nest of seaweed, fossilized upon him in one violent moment.

–

As is the sea beneath them, so is her heart. Full. Roaring. She tastes her saltiness in his mouth, the taste of the ocean, the sweet smell of swamps. Deep-sea diving, eyes open, swimming from luminous turquoise into dark blue towards almost black waters. Unafraid, she swims down, through ocean caves, no longer needing to breathe. With a calm urgency she swims down towards home, past and with all the women who are a part of her. Long adolescent summer-evening baths with her best friend. Languid days spent reading side by side on burning rocks next to waterfalls. The contentment of each other’s company. The soft downy hair of his armpit feels like the cradle next to her mother’s breast in which her head still fits exactly. She wraps herself around him the way she and her sisters used to sleep entwined, slowly realizing she is no longer homesick.

–

Untitled from Fractal Scars Salt Water and Tears,
2012-2014, dimensions variable.

Esther Teichmann
Born in June 1980, Karlsruhe, Germany, grew up between Germany and USA. Currently lives and works in London.

2013 – currentVisiting Lecturer in Humanities, Royal College of Art, MA dissertation supervision Fine Art

Education
2006 – 2011 PhD	Photography, Royal College of Art Thesis title: Falling into Photography – On Loss, Desire and the Photographic Supervisors: Dr. Francette Pacteau (RCA), Prof. (Dr.) Carol Mavor (University of Manchester, Art History), Phd examiners: Dr. Maria Balshaw (Director Whitworth Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery), Leslie Dick (CalArts, LA), chair: Dr. Clare Pajakowska (RCA)
2004 – 2005 MA	(distinction) Photography, Royal College of Art, London, UK
1999-2002 BA (hons)	(First Class Honours with distinction) Photography, University of the Creative Arts, Maidstone, UK

Academic Experience:
2012-2013	Guest Professor and Visiting Artist, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, Photography MfA and BA (sabbatical from LCC/UAL)
2008 – current	Senior Lecturer (0.75 fractional post) University of the Arts London/ London College of Communication (BA and MA Photography – theory and practice)
2005 – February 2011	Senior Lecturer (0.5 fractional post) University of Brighton (BA and MA Photography – theory and practice)
Visiting Lecturing/ further academic experience:
2012	External examiner for the University of the Creative Arts, Farnham Photography BA(hons) course revalidation
2006 – 2011	Visiting Lecturer in Photography (MA), Royal College of Art, London
2006 – ongoing	Visiting Lecturer in Photography, University of the Creative Arts, Rochester and Maidstone, Kent
Selected University Artist Talks:
	UK: Royal College of Art, Ruskin (Oxford University), Cambridge University (Cambridge), Camberwell College of Art/ UAL, Chelsea College of Art/ UAL, University of the Creative Arts (Rochester and Maidstone, Kent), City & Guilds Art College (London), Falmouth University (Cornwall), Manchester University (Manchester), Westminster University (London), Swansea University, International: California College of the Arts (San Francisco), UC Davis (Sacramento, California), Ithaca College (NY), RMIT (Melbourne), Kulturama School of Art (Stockholm), ISSP (Riga, Latvia)
Other Selected Lectures:
October 2012	Society for Photographic Education Annual Conference, Oakland, California, Artist talk.
April 2012	Esther Teichmann and Carol Mavor in conversation, Daniel Blau Gallery, London.
January 2012	Esther Teichmann in conversation with Simon Baker (curator of Photography Tate Modern, London) and Sue Steward (curator).
February/ March 2011	Talks program curated for The Photographers Gallery, London, ‘Affect and the Photographic’ (two month program including an artist talk on own research and a closing keynote lecture by Prof. Alexander Garcia Duttman (Goldsmiths University, London).
Selected Solo and Two Person Shows:
2015	Fulmine, Legion TV, London (Arts Council funded project space) In Search of Lightning, Zephyr, Reiss Engelhorn Museum, Mannheim, Germany (first solo museum show)
2014	Fractal Scars, Salt Water and Tears, Flowers Gallery, London, April Fractal Scars, Salt Water and Tears, Levallois Award Exhibition, Paris (with Larry Sultan/ Mike Mandel and Lucas Blalock exhibitions)
2011	In Search of Lightning, Royal College of Art, London, November
2010	Mythologies, Severed Head, artist led project space, Dublin, September
2009	Lulled into Believing; Esther Teichmann & Henrietta Simson, Man&Eve, London, September Mythologies, exhibition and residency at RMIT, Melbourne Australia, August
2008	Stillend Gespiegelt, Galerie Karlheinz Meyer, Karlsruhe, Germany, May
2007	Silently Mirrored, Man&Eve, London, September Fantasie Photostudio, The Esthacus Teichwynd Photos, Spartacus Chetwynd & Esther Teichmann, Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin, July
2006	Habitat, Phoenix Arts, Brighton, June
2005	Minus Seven Plus Eighteen, curated by Shirley Read, Lounge Gallery, London, February
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2015	Femina at the Centre d’Art Contemporain, Pavillion Vendome, Paris with Orlan, Cindy Sherman Esther Teichmann and others
2013	The Constructed View: UK Photography Now at the Dong Gang Museum of Photography with Tom Hunter, Cristina De Middel, Esther Teichmann, Adam Broomberg, Oliver Chanarin and many more, curated by Louise Mazmanian and Joanne Junga Yang Convulsive Walls curated by Steffi Klenz including work of Anna Barriball, Rut Blees Luxemburg, Steffi Klenz, Gregor Schneider, Helen Sear, Lindsay Seers and Esther Teichmann, Departure Lounge, Luton
2012	InAppropriation curated by Aaron Schuman, Oliver Chanarin and Adam Broomberg, Seba Kurtis, Michael Wolf, Esther Teichmann, Houston Centre of Photography, Houston, Sept
2011	The Show, Royal College of Art, London, June
2011	Wahlverwandschaften, Zephyr, Reiss-Engelhorn Museum, Mannheim, Germany, May
2010	Regarding Painting, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin, July The Borrowed Loop, Man&Eve Project Space, London July
2008	In Our World: New Photography from Britain curated by Filippo Maggia, Modena Civica, April
2007	Tagesstunde, Sassa Trülzsch Galerie, Berlin September The Region of Unlikeness, Bank Gallery, Los Angeles, August
2006	Hyeres Festival, Villa Noailles, Hyeres, France, May
2005
Selected Bibliography: Artist publications:
2014	Esther Teichmann, Fractal Scars, Salt Water and Tears (selfpublishbehappy book club edition series)
2010	Esther Teichmann, Drinking Air
2009	Esther Teichmann & Henrietta Simson, Lulled into Believing
2007	Esther Teichmann, Silently Mirrored
Artwork included in and written about by other academics and critics:
2013	Blue Mythologies, Carol Mavor, Reaktion books
2012	Black and Blue: The Bruising of Roland Barthes,Marguerite Duras, Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, Carol Mavor, Duke University Press
2011	100 New Artists edited by Francesca Gavin, Laurence King.
2009	Spaces of Wonderland chapter by Carol Mavor, University of Iowa
2008	In Our World: New Photography from Britain edited by Filippo Maggia, Skira
Selected Press/Publications:
2014	Daylight Digital (USA, March) portfolio of new work and essay by SFMOMA curator, Jessica Brier Hotshoe (GB, Sept) portfolio of new work and interview Sot it Goes (GB, Oct) portfolio of new work and interview Cabinet (USA, Dec) essay by Carol Mavor
2013	EXIT (ES/ MEX, Oct) portfolio of new work
2012	Foam (NL, Oct) portfolio of work and interview by Anne-Celine Jaeger 1000Words (UK, Aug) portfolio of work and interview by Brad Feuerhelm Aesop (AUS, July) portfolio of work and interview by Freire Barnes
2011	10 (UK, July) portfolio of work and interview by Skye Sherwin (ArtReview) Photographies/ Routledge (UK) Essay by Carol Mavor, edited by Olivier Richon
2010	Eyemazing (NL, Oct) portfolio of work and interview with Hilaire Avril, Nowness (UK, March) Interview and feature
2009	Dazed&Confused (GB, Oct) review of exhibition, Guardian (UK, Oct) review of exhibition, Skye Sherwin Qvest (Germany, March) portfolio of work
2008	Bedeutung (USA, June) portfolio of work, BeContemporary (FR, October) feature and interview on new British artists Qvest (Germany, July) portfolio of work and interview with Skye Sherwin Source (Ireland, July) portfolio of work and interview with editor, Richard West Timeout (UK, Oct) 40 best artists under 40 selected by Helen Sumpter and Ossian Ward
2007	Piktogram (Poland) Esther Teichmann & Spartacus Chetwynd collaborative works 032C (Germany, Dec) Esther Teichmann & Spartacus Chetwynd collaborative works Timeout (UK, Sept) exhibition of the week featured by Helen Sumpter