Claudius Schulze: State of Nature

“State of Nature” shows the extent that natural­-disaster protection has become part of the European landscape. Claudius Schulze traveled about 50.000 km across Europe, photographing seemingly picturesque landscapes from a crane platform with a large­-format camera. But each of those idyllic scenes contains imperfec­tions: alpine panoramas are crossed by snow sheds, the North Sea coast is fur­rowed by breakwaters. In each of the pho­tographs, protective structures rise into the landscape. But these pictures are not about defining the boundary between culture and nature. On the contrary: the pho­tographs demonstrate how much the two spheres penetrate each other.