Winners of the Alfred Fried Photography Award 2015
Regelbau
Regelbau is a study on the German standardized bunker from World War Two and its current state, both as a historical object and a part of present nature. A fascination for modernist materials, such as concrete and steel, and how time transforms these buildings into modern time ruins. But also, a fascination for the idea of building permanent fortifications and their form and size. In less than three years, tens of thousands of concrete structures were erected along the European coasts and far inland as part of the Atlantikwall. For the last 15 years I have travelled the European continent to document these bunkers. It brought me to remote places and it helped me grasp the geography of war and peace, too. The German bunkers show how practical solutions lead to modernist monuments. I also try to open a discussion on their history and whether we should preserve them for future generations, to remind us how far dictators go to preserve peace in their world. Jury statement: In reality peace often takes on the impression of a paradise lost. Bleak, barren, lifeless. Arthur van Beveren’s series Regelbau documents relicts of seaside bunkers from the Second World War. The ruins look like stranded maritime giants. The closer you get to the desolate rumps, the spookier they look. They rest in the spray, are washed round, hollowed out. Their aura does not meet any creaturely needs. The giants come across as bizarre, sometimes like sand castles, usually hostile. The photographs’ atmosphere of waiting reflects pain, resentment, death, destruction. Yet van Beveren does not create a memorial to these bunkers but a warning against war, because peace is more than the absence of discord. Eventually you realize that the sea prevails slowly but surely against the built artifice and nature is reclaiming its space.
Regelbau is a study on the German standardized bunker from World War Two and its current state, both as a historical object and a part of present nature. A fascination for modernist materials, such as concrete and steel, and how time transforms these buildings into modern time ruins. But also, a fascination for the idea of building permanent fortifications and their form and size. In less than three years, tens of thousands of concrete structures were erected along the European coasts and far inland as part of the Atlantikwall. For the last 15 years I have travelled the European continent to document these bunkers. It brought me to remote places and it helped me grasp the geography of war and peace, too. The German bunkers show how practical solutions lead to modernist monuments. I also try to open a discussion on their history and whether we should preserve them for future generations, to remind us how far dictators go to preserve peace in their world. Jury statement: In reality peace often takes on the impression of a paradise lost. Bleak, barren, lifeless. Arthur van Beveren’s series Regelbau documents relicts of seaside bunkers from the Second World War. The ruins look like stranded maritime giants. The closer you get to the desolate rumps, the spookier they look. They rest in the spray, are washed round, hollowed out. Their aura does not meet any creaturely needs. The giants come across as bizarre, sometimes like sand castles, usually hostile. The photographs’ atmosphere of waiting reflects pain, resentment, death, destruction. Yet van Beveren does not create a memorial to these bunkers but a warning against war, because peace is more than the absence of discord. Eventually you realize that the sea prevails slowly but surely against the built artifice and nature is reclaiming its space.