The photographic works by Mirko Martin tell stories and show scenes and the big city themes that seem familiar to us. Martin plays with these familiar motifs, juxtaposing them like episodes in a film. They give the impression of being stills, initially confirming our cliché thinking about Los Angeles and the West Coast of the USA.

But this is only the first way these photos, which are drawn from both film sets and real events, can be read. Through the pictorial concentration of events and the subsequent compilation of the pictures, it is impossible to distinguish between truth and fiction. In the work of the artist, the two levels interpenetrate with such self-evidence and so imperceptibly that the observer cannot avoid asking, as Mirko Martin puts it, “what sort of truth can be learned from the photographs.”

biography

1976 born in Sigmaringen

1999–2001 apprenticeship as assistant for photo and media technology in Freiburg

2001–2007 studies on Free Arts (Freie Kunst) at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, diploma with distinction

2004 additionally auditing student at Universität der Künste Berlin (Visual Culture Studies)

2005/06 foreign exchange scholarship at California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, School of Film & Video, MFA program

2007/08 master class student at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig