Supplement #6 Moyra Davey

Supplement #6: Moyra Davey

on Heinz Peter Knes, Fotografische Arbeit

Heinz is at heart a diarist, an artist with a great deal of precision and an eye for the razor sharp detail that crystalizes and organizes a life. I first saw the black and white photographs he took of his sisters in the book, Eva Mirjam. I love the title, just the two names, no comma, documenting moments in the lives of two young girls, and then Eva and Mirjam, more grown up.

I asked Heinz to send a photo of the book to help me find it on the shelves, and I searched high and low for my copy, but it has a modest, stapled spine and our bookshelves are hopelessly disorganized. I really wanted to look closely again at the pictures, and read the text, and study the sequences, and reconstruct my memories of Eva as a tough little girl in a mini-skirt with a Walkman and headphones; the sisters half naked and smoking; one very fair, the other has a dark brown bob, eyeliner and a new wave look; then bleached, white hair with roots. The feeling in the early photos is punk and edgy, a bit dangerous even. Later Eva and Mirjam shed their evanescence and fauve quality, and become a bit more solid.

Instead of studying the book I took a picture of the two photos Heinz gave me, though I have inverted the profiles in the frame: on the book cover Eva and Mirjam face each other

Heinz introduced me to the French author and photographer, Hervé Guibert, whose fat book, Mausoleum of Lovers, I finally read cover to cover during the ‘Covid Pause.’

Guibert used a Rollei 35mm, a pocket sized range-finder, and I thought of him when our mutual friend, Julie Ault sent Jason a similarly small range-finder, an Olympus-XA in mint condition. Julie had been cleaning out her mother’s house in Maine, and found it still in its box with all the attachments. Over the summer we shot two rolls of black and white film, on the beaches and in the woods of Provincetown, and in the barn upstate, and sent the film to a mail-order lab. These photos, from the second roll, are for Heinz:

Moyra Davey is an artist whose work comprises the fields of photography, film and writing. She lives and works in New York.

Moyra Davey ist Künstlerin und arbeitet in den Bereichen Fotografie, Film und Text. Sie lebt und arbeitet in New York.

Supplement ist ein digitaler Handapparat, in dem thematische Vertiefungen, Dialoge und Denkprozesse zu der Ausstellung Fotografische Arbeit von Heinz Peter Knes sichtbar gemacht werden. Über die gesamte Laufzeit werden Beiträge von Künstler*innen und Autor*innen in Form von E-Mail-Aussendungen zugänglich gemacht.

Supplement is a collection of digital resources that explore related themes, dialogs and thought processes in the exhibition Fotografische Arbeit by Heinz Peter Knes. Contributions from various artists and writers will be made accessible via e-mail over the entire duration of the exhibition.