Art and Documentary Photography - Loading By_the_roadside___3856_-_Frankfurt_.JPG

Facade of Hotel Mövenpick in Europaviertel, built in 2006 according to plans by architects BeyeScheid. Frankfurt am Main, Germany

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A selection of photographs of Michael Nguyen are now now available as Fine Art Prints from the online Gallery Artmajeur, Paris
michael nguyen
Apr 24, 2023
“With my architectural photography, I am on the search for the aesthetic qualities of buildings in their urban spatial effect. Above all, I am interested in the visual richness.”

Michael Nguyen is a “publicity shy” (Merkur daily newspaper Munich) photo artist, a photographic poet who moves away from the mainstream, at the same time blurs genres.

"Most of the photos could only be taken because Nguyen has a special eye for his surroundings and gives even the mundane a second view." (Süddeutsche Zeitung). Nguyen highlights vivid, intense and often overlooked details of our daily reality.

In his photography he focuses on architectural details and urban landscapes. Michael Nguyen plays hyper-realistically with the intensity of color, light, contrast, sharpness, clarity and texture, creating more vivid representations of what we perceive with the naked eye.

Other of his photographs are minimalist and focus on details and their geometric shapes detached from the environment.In architecture, the term facade refers to the outwardly visible wall surfaces of a building, including windows, doors and the likes. Materials are often concrete, glass, wood, brick or masonry made of sand-lime bricks. But for Michael Nguyen, they are not just that inanimate materials or elements. They are like the face of a human, like the shape of body, or the clothes, which communicate with the other humans and tell stories.

That’s why in most of his photographs, Nguyen does not show an overall view of a building, but a look at the details and particularities. Just like when we approach a person and have a chance to look closer, we see their beautiful eyes, we hear their unique voice from those open lips, or sometimes just an interesting pattern of the dress they wear attracts us.

With these settings in mind, look at the photos of Nguyen. Buildings are not static objects with five facades, four side walls and the roof. They are lively, dynamic sculptures. The windows are their eyes, that reveal a part of their soul. The open doors are talking with us, inviting us to come in, to hear their inner stories. And the graphic layout of bricks, of glass, of wood or whatever the genuine architects create are their eye-catching clothes, which make our cities, our urban spaces more beautiful, more vibrant.

The series “By The Roadside“ with its various parts is Michael Nguyen's most important field of work. Photographs from Germany and neighboring countries. If we walk with our eyes open, we can see interesting, beautiful, and also ugly things along the road every day. And if we walk with not only with our eyes but also with our heart and mind open, you will discover a world that would otherwise remain closed to us. Sometimes spectacular. Sometimes ordinary but surprisingly miraculous. Michael Nguyen accompanies us on little journeys through places in Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, and elsewhere, to discover what the random walk leads us to.

In addition to his artistic work, Michael Nguyen is editor-in-chief of Tagree, online magazine for photography & art.


View on artmajeur.com ↗

Michael Nguyen | Nguyensminiaturen

Nguyensminiaturen, Photography by Michael Nguyen, Munich, Gauting, Architecture, Urban
Website via Visura

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