- Berlin by Night -
Berlin by Night is an ongoing series of photographs by Brazilian artist José Marçal. Taken during the artist’s wanderings through the German capital, the work depicts urban views of the empty city through the lens of his phone camera. Although tourist attractions such as the Television Tower are recognizable, the views seem to be perchance encounters with old world architecture and collections of monuments. The vantage point of the pedestrian and the wide camera angle lens of the phone create compositions that harken to the centrality of the human taking them: a person on foot registers the urban setting. The images are the result of José’s difficulty with sleeping, and his way to process his inner world during walks through these liminal spaces. Locations that would be bustling with life lay dormant between one busy day and the next, as José records that interim as a way to map his personal landscape. The artist’s images point to, most of all, the singular condition of the human body in its scale among the buildings. They could also be seen as a portrait of Berlin, depicting the city as a place that can respond to a single person wandering the streets at night.
