To this day, German photography remains influenced by the New Objectivity of the Becher School and its protagonists, such as Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff, and Jörg Sasse. In an attempt to oppose the classic aspects of the photographic image—sharpness and recognizability—Stefan Heyne (*1965 in Brandenburg an der Havel) leaves the objects in his pictures in a state of uncertainty, resisting the usual observational parameters. Faint traces of things appear in the light, only to disappear again in the contiguous darkness.

This publication features Heyne’s most recent works, to date the most radical abstractions in his oeuvre, which show photography in a manner commensurate with its etymology—as “painting with light,” liberated from the belief in the objective reproduction of reality as it is inscribed in the medium to this day, one that continues to adhere to Enlightenment concepts.