Ebbe Stub Wittrup

Danish, born 1973

Devil's Bridge #15, Villemagne-l'Argentière Pont du Diable, France from the series Devil's Bridges

© Ebbe Stub Wittrup

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

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© Ebbe Stub Wittrup

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

Devil's Bridge #15, Villemagne-l'Argentière Pont du Diable, France from the series Devil's Bridges, 2016

Artwork Details

Materials

chromogenic color print, face-mounted to Plexiglas, and mounted on aluminum

Edition:

1/3 plus 2 artist's proofs

Measurements

sheet: 63 x 83 inches (160.02 x 210.82 cm)

Collection Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Credit

Albert H. Tracy Fund, by exchange, 2018

Accession ID

P2018:9.6

This photograph by Ebbe Stub Wittrup belong to a series featuring the so-called “devil’s bridges” that span rivers and gorges across Europe. These medieval structures later appeared to locals to be superhuman feats of engineering, giving rise to folktales that associated the builders with the devil (whether as an adversary or an accomplice). Wittrup’s black-and-white photos, shot with a large-format camera from the point of view of someone traveling nearby on foot, capture the bridges in impressive perspective and detail, but they also eliminate most signs of people or modern life. In this way, they recreate the view of the bridges as they have appeared to people for hundreds of years, ultimately questioning how the structures, stories, and values of the past persist in the landscape of the present.

Label from We the People: New Art from the Collection, October 23, 2018–July 21, 2019