Eric Klemm: Metamorphosis
2006
This short explores the many marvelous incarnations of Eric Klemm. At 65, his latest role is that of fine art photographer. He burst onto the Canadian art scene last fall with immense 6 foot 'social landscapes' that garnered immediate critical praise. The Globe & Mail called his work "lush, super-saturated…and beautifully disconcerting". Klemm landed a spot in Carte Blanche's 2006 collection of top Canadian photographers. And yet Klemm's social landscapes are just one chapter in a lifetime of artistic reinvention. In 1968 a borrowed camera and beautiful model won him a two-page spread in a top German photography magazine, and launched him into international commercial photography. Klemm had dizzying success through the whirlwind of the 60s, shooting for Europe's best: Playboy, Photo, Lui, Stern, Zeit-Magazin. A book entitled Girls, Girls, Jaguars in the driveway, a fur-trimmed existence--Klemm epitomized the era.
And then, in 1979, an abrupt change: he closed the door on commercial photography and moved to a speck of an island in the Maldives, inhabited only by crows and sandcrabs. He named his island Cocoa, and would spend the next 15 years as architect, gardener and builder on this sliver of sand. It was a dream of epic proportions: he dug up palm trees from neighbouring islands, floating them over to tree-less Cocoa. He planted 809 palms. He sank half barrels of soil into lifeless sand, and grew tropical gardens of hibiscus and wild ginger. He brought paradise to the island.
And then, another metamorphosis. He left Cocoa as quickly as he had arrived, trading thatched roofs for Toronto skyscrapers. His new photography work is massive, detailed, fantastical, mature. He says he is doing his best life work, and Canadian art critics agree with him. He photographs monochromatic quarries, forgotten mills, downtown back alleys, cubist industrial parks.
In Eric Klemm: Metamorphosis, Klemm's own reflections and anecdotes bring each era vividly to life, as does a nuanced soundtrack that reflect each of Eric Klemm's startling incarnations.