Marble Store Office

Artist Roth, Louis German, b. 2001

Date2023-2024

MediumInkjet print

DimensionsImage: 33 1/2 x 47 1/8 in. (85.1 x 119.7 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase with funds provided by the Maxine and Lawrence K. Snider Prize

Object number2024:244

About the ArtistDrawing indirectly from the composition and imagery often represented in science fiction, Louis Roth’s photographs are concurrently literal and speculative, questioning themes of power, community, and infrastructure. He cites the parts of his childhood spent in an alternative housing project outside of Berlin as requisite to his curiosity about nontraditional and acutely designed forms of community. In this spirit, his photo series turned book, Fata Morgana (2023-2024), documents the development of Egypt’s New Administrative Capital. This new city, currently still being built, is intended to relocate millions of citizens from Cairo to relieve infrastructural pressure. Fata Morgana (which translates from German to English as “mirage”), however, looks beyond the ambitious vision of the planners and interrogates class discrepancies, political power, and ecological consequences.

Louis Roth studied at the Ostkreuz School of Photography. His work has been shown in exhibitions at Technical Collections, Dresden; Berlinsche Galerie, Berlin; NRW-Forum, Düsseldorf; and others. Fata Morgana was shortlisted for the LUMA Recontres d’Arles Dummy Book Award.