Erdklammer 2005 / 2008

No Vertical Limit

Krishna Lahoti lets go of the reins of perspective: His vertical, encircling 360-degree panoramas put heaven and earth in motion to bestow an unexpected visual experience. To better understand one must distance oneself from the purely perspectival perception of space. What is more appropriate is the idea of space as a cylinder wrapped around the viewer, opened on a flat surface, the image surface. This explains the surging and recessing distortion, breathing new life and vibrancy into the venerable ornamentation.

Lahoti is not only stimulated by classical interiors for his daring shots. His picture of the Eiffel Tower is probably the most unusual ever made of the landmark. The surrealists of the thirties would have certainly loved him for his courage to twist the viewer's head. Is it not rather Max Ernst's Elefant von Celebes gravely pacing up and down over Paris?

Krishna Lahoti also uses the term "topological photography" for his way of working. On a short excursion into the terminology of contemporary philosophy, one encounters concepts such as "topological turn" or "spatial turn". Both terms paraphrase the turn toward the increased perception of space by the cultural sciences. The work of this southwestern German with the melodic name could serve as a colorful illustration for this gray theory. One rarely experiences and questions pictorial space more so than in his vertical panoramas.

Horst Klöver