Up-river Book

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André Lützen visited the Congo twice, travelling up the Congo River on a United Nations patrol boat and taking pictures, both aboard and ashore. The route coincides in large part with that of Joseph Conrad's steamer voyage of 1890. Like Conrad, who became disillusioned after just six months, Lützen saw it as a journey into the "heart of darkness". Everything -- the climate, flora, and fauna, the river itself, the restless people, the mud and garbage -- seems foreign, threatening, dangerous. Pressing crowds, deep shadows, shimmering heat, and a feeling of latent violence permeate the reality he portrays, where photographs and macro shots of the human retina form a feverish dream