André Lichtenberg

André Lichtenberg’s large-scale cityscapes address issues of process, technology, and remembrance. Lichtenberg’s practice is informed by a highly technical and yet experimental approach to image-making. He is interested in the creative process and the subjective and poetic aspects of photography.

André Lichtenberg was born in 1964 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, to a mixed European heritage. As a child, he grew up in the expansive urban architecture of Porto Alegre and traveled  with his family. The travels influenced his future work. His educational background in the sciences and the arts also influenced his style, studying Civil Engineering before receiving degrees in the photographic arts and sciences. As a child, André spent a lot of time experimenting with perspective drawing. His landscapes and architectural images are often inspired by early childhood memories, carefully crafted into artworks using techniques that fluctuate between science and art. 

In his VERTIGO series, Lichtenberg focused solely on London. Lichtenberg took his camera to the top of the UK’s highest building, sited in Canary Wharf, home of the financial elite, and looked down. Captured here, the viewer’s eye is drawn down into a visual story, both beautiful and terrifying, that explores the connection between the form and the function of these late 20th-century buildings and the financial district’s relationship with society and the wider world beyond. In his series, Within, he expanded to other major cities. In this series, Lichtenberg constructs images from hundreds of architectural photographs and explores the cityscape’s profile through a concentrated study of the city in situ, inverting colors, and carefully crafting compositions. His Within series has been awarded two grants by the Arts Council England and exhibited as a major solo show in Brazil. His present series called Impossible Utopia are seascapes, composited from many different negatives taken over long lengths of time. They are studies in the possibilities of light, color, texture, and movement.

André Lichtenberg currently lives and works between London and Brighton, UK. He has worked with publications such as the Sunday Times (London) and Le Monde (Paris). Lichtenberg has received several international prizes and awards, including the Aesthetica Art Prize, Renaissance Photography Prize, and AOP Awards. He has exhibited in prestigious spaces, including the Museu da Republica (Rio de Janeiro – Brazil), Centro Cultural Sao Paulo (Brazil), The Photographers Gallery, and the Barbican Centre (London). In 2015, Lichtenberg was invited to collaborate with the Centre Pompidou/IRCAM in Paris. One of his artworks from the Licht Series illustrated the cover of the festival catalog, including a ten-foot print displayed outside the famous Parisian building and square.

SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS:

•  Joseph Cohen Family Collection, NY, US

•  Goodwin Law, London, UK

•  Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS TRUST, UK