White Ghost

The incident that prompted this artwork was the loss of a bitter dispute over logging; (...) In a manner evident in his other works, Gerz's memorialization of this event became an active collaboration with his island neighbours (...) whom he invited to pose nude in front of the detritus of logging activity. Nearly life-size, the images of aging bodies standing vulnerably in front of giant uprooted trees are powerful metaphors for human desire to control nature, and the inevitable disasters created in the wake of such domination.

Diana Augaitis 2008

White Ghost, the title of Jochen Gerz’s series, refers – perhaps with a certain dose of irony on the part of the artist – to the Chinese expression for souls who are not rooted and take their substance from things. In fact, it seems to me that White Ghost describes the people in the photographs and us as spectators, as well as our civilisation, both efficient and fragile, always at risk of losing its own traces…

Phillipe Mesnard 2008