GUNDOLF PFOTENHAUERPHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS/
HOME/WORKS/BLACK BOX
Two women inside a wooden black box beneath a cut-out shaped like a sleeping figure

A staged photographic series

BLACK BOX

The shape of sleepGundolf Pfotenhauer
View the complete series→
The Cut-out

An absence shaped like a body.

At the centre of BLACK BOX is a simple construction: a dark box with a space cut into it in the shape of a sleeping figure.

The body is not shown in the opening, yet its presence is unmistakable. The empty shape becomes a trace of someone who has been there, or a place waiting for someone to return.

A translucent sleeping figure emerging from a black box draped with red thread
BLACK BOX–02
Inside the Box

Shelter or confinement.

The box can be read as a room, a stage, a hiding place or a coffin. Its wooden interior feels warm and protective, while its black exterior closes the world away. The figures inside it appear held, observed and bound together by red thread.

The sleeping shape above them is both an escape and another enclosure. It opens the box, but only in the outline of a body. Like a dream, it offers freedom while keeping its own limits.

A blurred woman with red lips beside a wooden box containing a reclining figure and a sleeping-body-shaped opening
BLACK BOX–01
Two women inside a wooden black box beneath a cut-out shaped like a sleeping figure
BLACK BOX–03
Presence and Absence

BLACK BOX is about the space a body leaves behind.

The cut-out turns absence into something physical: a quiet shape between sleep and waking, protection and captivity, presence and loss.

View the complete series→