Gino Bühler

Photosynthese – Urformen des Lebens

07.12.2025 – 29.03.2026

Gino Bühler explores our (human) gaze towards plants. Bühler takes pictures of plants, who co-habit our urban space. His series Photosynthese (photosynthesis) makes these plants visible for us. His photos are “green portraits”, questioning the essence of plants. What is a plant? Why do we hardly ever notice them?

Those questions are not answered botanically, but photographically. Plants are first and foremost living beings, existing with and through light, maintaining themselves through photosynthesis. But the camera needs (the) light as well. Within this elective affinity of photography and photosynthesis Bühler's pictures show plants from his surroundings in Düsseldorf: They grow at the roadside, in parks, in backyards and front gardens, at forest edges and in the botanical garden. To get their picture, he positions his camera along the so called “Lichtachse” (light-axis), which originates from the plant. The leaves of the plants align themselves according to the daylight.

Thus, to photograph the plant’s “Antlitz” (face), the camera must follow that light-perspective. Although plants try to face the light with the largest possible surface, not all leaves are positioned the same. Thus, the portraited plants show themselves as individuals and also as organic habitats. Each singular “plant portrait” results as a translation of the living into the form of an image.

Dr. Martin Bartelmus