Kongsihuis 1900 - 1922

Robert Julius Boers made this stereograph, sometime near the turn of the 20th century. It’s a photograph printed in tones of brown and cream. There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about this image, the subjects are posed rather stiffly, and the cream colour makes me think of sepia-toned memories. The light in the image is hazy, as though it was taken on a hot day. If you look closely, you can see dustiness to the print itself. This lends a certain texture to the surface, it almost feels as though the scene is emerging from a cloud of dust, as though memory itself. The composition is split into two parts - like a double vision. When I look at this work I think of Bernd and Hilla Becher, who also captured architectural subjects in a detached style. But where they sought to classify and record, Boers seems more interested in atmosphere. It seems to ask; what can the camera see that the eye cannot?