Andreas Müller-Pohle

The Danube is the European river par excellence. On its way to the “new Europe,” it flows through ten states – Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldova, the Ukraine and Romania – and thus more countries and landscapes than any other river on the continent.

Berlin photographer and media artist Andreas  Müller-Pohle has produced an extraordinary photo, video and sound portrait of the more than 2,800 kilometer-long river in his “Danube River Project”. The photographs, taken from both below and above the river’s surface, provide a “intriguing fresh vision” (Ivaylo Ditchev) of the Danube with its unique urban panoramas and natural phenomena, its bridges, harbours and factories. Müller-Pohle’s poetically documentary view of the Danube also includes the water as a chemical substrate: Water samples taken from the spots photographed have been chemically analysed and the values inscribed into the image. The result is a “pictorial atlas” and a “blood count” all in one: an aesthetic and scientific compendium of Europe’s most important river, from the Black Forest to the Black Sea.