When German botanists refer to Schattenblumen (literally: ”shadow/shade plants”), what they will generally have in mind are the species of the maianthemum genus – plants that prefer shaded areas and avoid direct sunlight. Gerhard Lang’s plants are in themselves shadows that require light in order to be seen.

Our everyday experience tells us that all things have a shadow. In the case of Gerhard Lang’s Schattenblumen, however, all that in fact exists is the shadow itself. The onus is on the viewer to imagine their source, in this case physical plants. Lang’s shadows are hybrid creations – shadows whose source only appears in our minds and can assume otherworldly forms. [...]

Lang’s Schattenblumen are ghosts that can only be found in the realm of shadows. Nothing here is able to cast its own shadow. It is more the case of a shadow creating its source.

[C. N., Excerpt from the special publication (Separatum): Schattenblumen, 2008]
(1) More about the identikit photograph in Lang’s work:

- Palaeanthropical Physiognomy. Identikit photographs

- Identikit Photographs of Clouds
- New Reports from the Countryside. Identikit Photographs of Landscapes

Ill. I: Leucafagerus machinosus, 2008
Ill. II: Violagravia symphoniaca, 2008
Ill. III: Ophioica miscella, 2008