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Solo Exhibition

»Looking for Light«

John Pawson

»To love beauty is to see light«
Victor Hugo

Light is one of the eternal preoccupations of architecture, while the word photography derives from the Greek for ›drawing with light‹. Bastian Gallery Berlin celebrates the natural alliance of these two disciplines with an exhibition of photographs by John Pawson, whose distinctive way of looking has gained international recognition in recent years, alongside his long-established reputation in architectural practice.

The exhibition at Bastian comprises sixteen new print works, photographed at the home Pawson designed for his family in rural Oxfordshire, from an assemblage of historic domestic and agricultural structures. The images reveal a meticulously honed composition, shaped by the dialogue between two strikingly different categories of natural light. On the one hand, the lines and volumes of the architecture frame the drama of unmediated sunshine, cascading through space and across walls and floors. At the same time, the overt theatre of this narrative finds its counterpoint in the intimate interplay of filtered light and shadow.

John Pawson, »12:46, 10 November 2019«, 2021, Giclée print on photo matt fibre paper, 65.2 × 65.2 cm [H × W], Edition: 2+1 AP © John Pawson, Courtesy: BASTIAN Berlin/London
John Pawson, »17:26, 23 October 2020«, 2021, Giclée print on photo matt fibre paper, 65.2 × 65.2 cm [H × W], Edition: 2+1 AP © John Pawson, Courtesy: BASTIAN Berlin/London
John Pawson, »11:45, 22 December 2018«, 2021, Giclée print on photo matt fibre paper, 65.2 × 65.2 cm [H × W], Edition: 2+1 AP © John Pawson, Courtesy: BASTIAN Berlin/London
John Pawson – Looking for Light, Photo: Max Gleeson, 2022, Courtesy: BASTIAN Berlin/London
John Pawson – Looking for Light, Photo: Max Gleeson, 2022, Courtesy: BASTIAN Berlin/London
John Pawson – Looking for Light, Photo: Max Gleeson, 2022, Courtesy: BASTIAN Berlin/London

Taken during an extended period of immersive isolation at Home Farm, Pawson’s photographs loosen our instinct to draw distinctions between the permanent and the temporary. In these enduringly fixed compositions, the detail of a mark scratched into the surface of a wall carries no greater weight of reality than the frozen swirl of light on plaster or the grid of shadows cast by a window frame. Walls, floors and ceilings cease to be experienced as limits or constraints. Instead, each finite surface is a medium through which the light can express itself.

»Looking For Light« will be one of the inaugural exhibitions at the new Bastian gallery in Berlin, which was designed by John Pawson. It is Pawson’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.

Galerie BASTIAN

Mar 26 — May 1, 2022

Taylorstraße 1 · 14195 Berlin
[District: Dahlem | Borough: Steglitz-Zehlendorf]

Opening hours: Tue – Sat 11 am – 5 pm | Book your appointment

Admission free | Barrier-free access

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PiB Guide Nº60 MAY/JUNE 2025 © PiB ⸺ Photography in Berlin. COVER PHOTO · TITELBILD PiB Guide Nº60: Fairies IV/2, 2020 © Kathrin Linkersdorff / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Solo show »Microverse« at Haus am Kleistpark in Berlin-Schöneberg, read more on page 4! Image on page 4: Microverse III/3/2025/Sc-M510/19.6. – 10.10.24 © Kathrin Linkersdorff / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn +++ 2 photos on the right double page spread (p. 5), on the left: © Nelly Rau-Häring, Potsdamer Platz Im Blau, Nov. 1999 – Juni 2000, on the right: R: © André Kirchner, Bessel-, Ecke Charlottenstraße, Kreuzberg 2000 from the group show Berlin eins: »Die 90er Jahre« with André Kirchner, Nelly Rau-Häring, Peter Thieme at Haus am Kleistpark.

PiB Guide Nº60 MAY/JUNE 2025 © PiB ⸺ Photography in Berlin. COVER PHOTO · TITELBILD PiB Guide Nº60: Fairies IV/2, 2020 © Kathrin Linkersdorff / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Solo show »Microverse«  at Haus am Kleistpark in Berlin-Schöneberg, read more on page 4! Image on page 4: Microverse III, 3/2025/Sc-M510/19.6. – 10.10.24 © Kathrin Linkersdorff / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. +++ 2 photos on the right double page spread (p. 5), L: © Nelly Rau-Häring, Potsdamer Platz Im Blau, Nov. 1999 – Juni 2000, R: © André Kirchner, Bessel-, Ecke Charlottenstraße, Kreuzberg 2000 from the group show Berlin eins: »Die 90er Jahre« with André Kirchner, Nelly Rau-Häring, Peter Thieme at Haus am Kleistpark. +++ PiB Guide Editors / V.i.S.d.P. / Art Direction: Julia Schiller & Oliver Schneider

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»PiB — Photography in Berlin« | PiB’s website, PiB’s weekly E-Newsletter, and the bi-monthly published PiB Guide: page 12 & 13 from the PiB Guide Nº15 Nov/Dec 2017; feat. the exhibition Evelyn Hofer »Cities, Interiors, Still Lifes. Photographs 1962 – 1997« at Galerie Springer Berlin; image credits: Queensboro Bridge, New York, 1964 / Coney Island, New York, 1965 / Girl with Bicycle, Dublin, 1966, all 3 photos © Evelyn Hofer, Estate Evelyn Hofer.
»PiB — Photography in Berlin« | PiB’s website, PiB’s weekly E-Newsletter, and the bi-monthly published PiB Guide: page 12 & 13 from the PiB Guide Nº15 Nov/Dec 2017; feat. the exhibition Evelyn Hofer »Cities, Interiors, Still Lifes. Photographs 1962 – 1997« at Galerie Springer Berlin; image credits: Queensboro Bridge, New York, 1964 / Coney Island, New York, 1965 / Girl with Bicycle, Dublin, 1966, all 3 photos © Evelyn Hofer, Estate Evelyn Hofer.

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