Background information, content
"Thousands of kilometers by car and camera through Los Angeles - dream or nightmare? In his long-term project 'L.A. Crossing', created since 2010, Jens LIEBCHEN shows us the capital of unconditional mobility as most of its inhabitants prefer to perceive it: through the windows of their cars. From the driving car he looks at a city that unites the opposites of utopia and dystopia. L.A. Crossing' itself sounds like the title of a film, and so the street becomes the stage and the photograph a kind of still image. Bathed in the beguiling Californian light, the city appears fictitious and real at the same time. An icon of photographic art, the image 'La Brea/Beverly' by Stephen SHORE serves as a theoretical hook for the work. Starting from the 'La Brea Matrix Project', in the center of which was the aforementioned photo, Jens LIEBCHEN reversed the view and now looks back from the street to the city. Neither does he stop, like Lee FRIEDLANDER (in 'America by Car'), nor does he subordinate himself to a strict system, like Ed RUSCHA (in 'Every Building on the Sunset Strip') - Jens LIEBCHEN 'drives and drives and drives'. From the privileged and air-conditioned perspective of the driver's seat, the light and dark sides of the dream factory are revealed." (slightly modified publisher's text, original: © Hartmann projects, 2022)