In his photographic works, Ives Maes creates controversial portraits of specific historical epochs by combining characters and elements from well-known science fiction films with the venues and architectural remains of past world exhibitions.
In the process, he contrasts the faith in technical progress and the optimistic projections of the future propagated by those exhibitions with the darker visions conveyed by science fiction. The latter examine the epochs in question critically, from the perspective of the future, and therefore investigate negative factors such as racism, the nuclear arms race, or Orwell’s state of surveillance as well. Ives Maes brings such contradictions together in his staged photos and so develops bizarre narratives full of irony, which question recent history in a perceptive way.
In Studio 2, Ives Maes is showing a space-consuming installation including photographic works in the form of light-boxes, and also collages and drawings referring to the International Building Exhibition in Berlin, 1957; Maes plans to present the cult German science fiction series “Raumschiff Orion” as a foil to the IBA site. Visitors can already imagine from the studies shown just what it will be like when the famous spaceship sails in over Berlin’s Hansa District, which will then face inspection by “space patrol Orion”.