Titlis

Le livre

This selection of 40 medium-format color photographs by Walter Niedermayr transports us into the world of perpetual ice--to Mount Titlis, the glacier which rises proudly above the boundaries of space and time, 3,000 meters above sea level in the Swiss Alps. Only the human figures in colorful leisure attire which populate this alpine Shangri-la bear witness to the influence of civilization, transforming the alpine landscape--once the paradigm of an aesthetics of the sublime--into a trivial theme park governed by the laws of consumption. In Titlis, Niedermayrs camera captures the aura of a mountain landscape that is no longer just a mountain landscape but a legend. The alpine setting in which the puppet-like figures of tourists appear are shaped by these clich s and bold idealizations of nature to such a great extent that subjective perception and feelings become mere platitudes. If Jean Baudrillard were a tourist in the Alps with a knack for taking pictures, these are the images he would make.