Gambling halls live on illusions: they promise fortune and wealth, yet reality is the players’ misery. The needier the casinos’ social environments, the more fanciful their appearance has to be to draw customers. Most of Berlin’s roughly 500 casinos are located in the poorer districts of the city, one hundred of them Anne Lass visited for her series Triple Seven. It is common knowledge that gambling does not solve problems but almost inevitably results in despair. Nevertheless, players stick to their illusion. A symbol for this situation is a wonderful orchid that will be withered soon.

To fabricate and maintain their illusion, casinos create their own reality, following the taste of their customers. Since most of them belong to the lower strata of society and have an inclination to kitsch, the interiors are filled with parrots, fairy lights, palm trees or a view of Manhattan’s skyline with sparkling lights over glittering water – as a photo wallpaper, half hidden behind a curtain. Everything is pretence, con, fake. The outside world is completely denied, it must not interfere. The windows, if there are any, are covered. Daylight is mostly non-existent.

Human beings do not appear in these documentary-like photographs, and yet the pictures are charged with emotions. The emptiness and desolation of the scenery reflect the loneliness of the gamblers, their constantly renewed hope and the imperative fall. As in all kinds of addictions, the drug – gambling – must fill an inner emptiness. A dark TV screen stands as a symbol for the lack of communication, and only slips of paper pinned to the walls address the players, give them instructions. Bright colours are to distract from the existing dreariness, yet what remains are darkness, shadows, forsakenness. Anne Lass stresses the situation’s hopelessness with bottleneck situations: closed doors, windows without views, impenetrable walls and corners define endpoints.

However, there is also another side. The photographs themselves are perfect works of art with balanced compositions and colour arrangements that remind us of the great works of colour field painting. Anne Lass puts the truthfulness and beauty of her art against the deceit of the casinos. And what is more: the photos do not denounce, they take the gamblers’ wishes and desires seriously. As wrong as they might be, they have a sincere core: the hope for a better life, the longing for some happiness.

The title of this series, Triple Seven, refers to the maximum profit opportunity of Black Jack, the most popular card gamble. This profit, however, is quite moderate, the winner only gets 1.5 times his stake.

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Please see the works of Anne Lass in our exhibitions Constructivism, Mostly and Just Photographs.

Biography

Lives and works on Bornholm

awards and grants

solo shows

group shows (selection)

For further information please visit the artist’s website.