Audio Guide

A deep blue surface. Dozens of vertical lines of light. Scattered points of light between them. The lines seem to rise upward. They extend across the entire width of the image. Two thirds of the picture consist of nothing but vibrating bands of light. Above them: deep blue.

Nothing in this image can be clearly identified. And yet, it is a photograph. Along the edge of the negative appears a single inscription:  "Lisbon." A cityscape. So abstract that, without this inscription, it could never be identified.

In this photograph by Lothar Wolleh, taken in 1968, neither streets nor squares can be recognized. Architecture is no longer the organizing principle of the image. Light determines the entire composition. The order of the city gives way to a rhythmic structure of light, seemingly rising upward.

Two vertical columns of light, however, stand out clearly. Posi­tioned in the upper third of the image, they appear to reach into the night sky, rising above the surrounding web of light. 

On the left, the luminous trace of São Vicente de Fora - church and monastery, founded in the twelfth century and among Portugal's most important sacred monuments. On the right, forming its counterpart, rises the luminous column of the Igreja da Memória. Together, they span the space between them. They become the points of orientation within the image.

Wolleh is not interested in the city as architecture. Nor in the shimmering lights of the modern metropolis. His attention is drawn to these two columns of light. They structure the image. They bring order to what first appeared to be chaos. But this is where the real question begins.

Wolleh does not simply document the luminous presence of these sacred buildings. He develops it further through photography. We no longer see churches as buildings. We see the effect of light. His camera transforms that light into a new visual form. This is not the depiction of a single moment. Nor of a fixed state. We witness a process. A transformation. It is here that Wolleh reveals himself as a maker of light images.

The mystery of Wolleh's work lies in the fact that this trans­formation takes place only in the context of sacred spaces.

Is it the photographic continuation of a centuries-old dramaturgy of light? Or did Wolleh find, in sacred architecture, the one place where light could unfold its greatest power?

His photographs offer no definitive answer. Perhaps that is precisely where their strength lies. They leave the answer to the light itself.