Marathon
Author: Volker Renner
Publisher: volker renner
Volker Renner's last artist's book, Tausendfüßler, was just the warmup. For Marathon, he stopped photographing runners from the sidelines and got on the course himself. The artist covered the entire distance from Marathon to Athens, at walking pace. Not a top athlete but a flâneur with a camera, he turns the athletic logic—only the fastest one wins—on its head. Competition and the pursuit of a new record give way to visual exploration; Renner slows down rather than pushing the pace. After every kilometer he has covered, he takes a photograph of the terrain: a view to the left, straight ahead, to the right—and onward.
Renner's photographs of the route in book form bridge the divides between documentation, meditation, and conceptual art: changes in the scenery and transitional settings alternate with architectural fragments, gas stations, and road markings. They form a sequence of incidental sights and marginal phenomena whose ordinariness stands in stark contrast to the media spectacle and collective imagination surrounding athletic mega-events (or contests, if you prefer).
In Marathon, Volker Renner weaves together the historic site and the origins of the sport with topical questions about the meaning of speed, the body, and perception in an era defined by "higher, faster, further."
- Year
- 2026
- ISBN
- 978-3-86485-368-5
- Pages
- 84
- Price
- 30.00 EUR — In stock
From the same publisher
- Sleep Tight
- Wo waren Sie, Herr Renner? oder ein Mangel an Information — Where were you, Mr. Renner? or A lack of information
- Der Player
- Tausendfüßler
- XXL
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