The Eternity Project

contemporary photography widera
contemporary photography widera
contemporary photography stephan widera

A new View on Antiquity

The remains of the culture of the ancient Greek and Roman are impressive and of eternal beauty. But the impact on the observer of today is not that strong as it was in the time of their creation.
The main reason is that those skulptures look today like a dead piece of marble.
Especially the faces with their "dead" eyes prevent the deep impression and personal touch they once had on the viewer.
Originally the sculptures have been coloured and they had painted eyes or even attached eyes of glass. Today, housands of years later the paint and the attached eyes are lost. Many statues even lost the whole head.

In his "Eternity-Project" the artist tries to "bring them back to life" and to transfer them to our times. After taking lots of photographs in the antique collection of the Paris Louvre (and other antique collections) he made some slight modifications in the images.
Giving the statues a modern haircut or adding realistic looking eyes to the faces (for example) makes the antique statues more contemporary and gives the observer a new on the classic art.

The created pictures give a deeper approach to the sculptures, showing them as characters, as personalities, not as old, dead pieces of stone. The eye-contact makes it possible to enter in a voiceless, inner dialogue.
The observer recognizes that the idea of the human image hasn´t change, that those more than 1000 years old sculptures are still representing the timeless image of mankind, that they still have significance, that they still have to tell something.

Stephan Widera

Stephan Widera is a German photographer and visual artist living in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was born in in Bremen.

He photographs a variety of subjects and is a pioneering artist in the field of interactive installation. Stephan Widera'´s works have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Germany, Europe and the United States, in Galleries, Museums and at Art Fairs.
Stephan Widera is member of the association of Düsseldorf artists and represented by Fusion Gallery. His studio is located in Düsseldorf, Germany, Capital of the state North Rhine Westphalia.

Find more information about the artist on his Website

(Images: Stephan Widera)