La ruta del sol

“That which appears to be out of reach holds mysterious power.
One wants to at least try to achieve that which seems impossible.”
Alexander von Humboldt

In 1802, Alexander von Humboldt crossed the Andes along the Incan „La Ruta del Sol“. In 2010, Frank Gaudlitz traversed the 2,500 kilometre long section of this legendary South American expedition and visited sites of importance noted in Humboldt’s diaries. The journey led him through the various landscapes of Columbia, Ecuador and Peru, past the volcanoes of Chimborazo and Cotopaxi, into isolated mountain villages and colonial cities, and allowed him to enter into various cultures.

Cruz del Sur

“You are
Where your eye is.”
Paul Celan

In 2005, Frank Gaudlitz travelled for the first time to the Inca states of Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. In this time of political unrest, in the parallel worlds of the indigenous and white cultures, he created images that expand our view of the Ruta del Sol and are being presented for the first time in Germany in the galleries of the Michael Horbach Foundation.

“With respect and curiosity for the ‘other’, Frank Gaudlitz succeeds in transforming the subjective perspective of his perception into an authentic image of the ‘other’. Frank Gaudlitz’s photographs gain their pictorial presence and fascination from this formal way of dealing with both distance and immediacy.” (Friedrich Meschede)

Frank Gaudlitz

Frank Gaudlitz was born in Vetschau in 1958 and lives and works in Potsdam. He studied Photography under Arno Fischer at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig.
He works with analogue cameras on his own independent, long-term projects, especially in Russia, Eastern Europe and South America. His large photographic series – “The Russians Leave” (1990-1994), “Between Times” (1992-2000), “Waiting for Europe” (2003-2005), “Casa Mare – The Great Space” (2005-2008), “Cruz del Sur” (2005-2014) and “La Ruta del Sol” (2010) – cover the spectrum between epoch-making events and individual fates.