Robert Morat Gallery is pleased to present new work by young German photographer Claudius Schulze in fall 2017. „State of Nature“ assembles landscape photographs from all over Europe.

Picturesque studies of nature, almost romantically elevated. But on a second glance, the peaceful tranquility of these landscapes proves to be deceptive. Dutch beaches, wrested from the sea, have to be defended against the ocean and rising sea levels by massive concrete breakwaters and Swiss mountainous landscapes are being penetrated by avalanche protection walls and dams to protect them from landslides and melting glaciers. These man-made landscapes hold a desire for security - security from man-made climate catastrophies and from the uncontrollable, destructive forces of a sublime, powerful nature.

The intervention of man transforms nature into picturesque sceneries, as European culture has painted them since romanticism.

Claudius Schulze, born in 1984, went to school in Munich and studied Political and Islamic Studies in Hamburg and Istanbul. In 2011 he graduated from the M.A. program "Photojournalism and Documentary Photography“ at London College of Communication at the University of the Arts, London. The work of Claudius Schulze has been published and exhibited internationally. He lives and works in Hamburg. The book to the series "State of Nature" has been published by Hartmann Projects.