Bus Stops

The photo book presents a series of bus stops that Michael Kruscha photographed while travelling. The recordings come from Eastern Europe, Kazakhstan/Armenia, Arabia/Middle East, North and South Africa, South America and Asia. The starting point was a trip to Oman, where the artist encountered bus stops on hundreds of kilometers of desert roads.

They seem paradoxical: the structure built to wait appears robbed of its function, a L'art-pour-l'art product? The design is even more amazing. The small secular buildings vary in material, shape and condition: partly between decorative architecture and futuristic sculpture, with relief, painting or mosaic, geometrically reduced and decorated with ornamentation or figures. Some are serially produced, others individually, some palatial and elaborate, some provisional or half-ruined.

In the illustrated book, close-ups of atmospheric landscapes and extraordinary details alternate with painterly color transitions and high-contrast image compositions. Art-historical presentation, an interview with the artist and quotes from well-known authors intensify the travel experience. The viewer is fascinated by the aesthetic appeal of foreign landscapes and by the variety of international architectural styles that merge here in a unique way.