Atmospheric new photographs from the inimitable Wim Wenders

Of all the desolate landscape photography we see, few examples live up to Wim Wenders, the German filmmaker and photographer who has built his name on a string of enigmatic arthouse films and a keen eye for atmospheric landscapes. Although best known for films like 1984’s Paris, Texas which tends to linger on the wide open expanse of American Southwest and its gas stations, diners and highways, as his lesser know pursuit, his photographs are often imbued with a similar ambience and all the poignancy of an Edward Hopper painting.

An exhibition of recent photographs opens on Thursday at Blain Southern in Wenders’ native Berlin and pulls together images of Germany and America. Accompanying panoramas of cities like Berlin or the epic American outdoors are photographs in which he captures eerie small towns or revisits some of his film locations from previous years.

The show is ultimately about staging a dialogue between the two countries that have shaped his work. “I think I had wide-open eyes for America, and ‘the American landscape’ in a general sense seemed extremely attractive to me, both as a photographer and filmmaker,” he says. “Maybe the long absence from Germany of 15 years has enabled me to see places here with the same wide-open eyes. What has remained the same: in those landscapes, German or American, I’m still looking for the traces of civilization, of history, or people.”

Time Capsule. By the side of the road is on at Blain Southern in Berlin 17 September – 14 November.