In her work Alexandra Leykauf examines the relationship between the surface of the photographic image and the photographic subject. By folding and bending her own or found photographs, Leykauf creates three-dimensional objects which she then photographs, thereby restoring a flat condition. Shifts in perspective and scale blur the status of the (re)presentation.
In her annual edition for the GAK Leykauf has worked with an image of the painting Sunset Harbor at Rio (1864) by Martin Johnson Heade as it was reproduced in the publication American Marine Painting (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1987). After removing the entire page from the catalog, Leykauf folded the page along the shoreline depicted in the image, arranged it on a table, and photographed the object. This arrangement establishes a peculiar relationship between the setting, the page and the space within the image, as reflected in the title of Leykauf’s work.