Wim Wenders’ photographs of moody Americana capture the themes in the director’s iconic films

Wim Wenders doesn’t travel with a script in mind. The German auteur of picturesque moody cult-favourite films such as Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire rather wanders until he encounters a place with narrative potential. 'When I can feel a place and be comfortable in it, the stories bound to happen there come to me,' he tells Wallpaper*. 'They must be stories that could not happen anywhere else.' The Berliner pursues a similar motivation to find the subjects of his photography, some of which are now on view at New York’s Howard Greenberg Gallery. The show, titled Written Once, in the historic Art Deco Fuller Building focuses on two bodies of work which Wenders captured in 1970s and ‘80s.

A group of black and white images from the late ‘70s follow the director’s long car rides on far-stretching American high-ways in the sun-drenched desert. In a trio of stills titled When Martin Scorsese had a flat tire (all 1977), the titular Hollywood giant joins Wenders and his companions on his Oldsmobile 88 convertible rental en route to the Telluride Film Festival. The images chronicle the two young and promising directors’ serendipitous encounter after Scorsese’s Ford Catalina had a flat tire in Utah’s infamous backcountry known as the Valley of the Gods. None other than Isabella Rossellini who was on the passenger seat in Scorsese’s vehicle eventually shared the ride towards Colorado, as well. 'My and Marty’s cars were perhaps the only two that had driven by that road on that day,' says Wenders about the cinematic happenstance.

Wenders images, not unlike his internationally-lauded films such as 2023’s Oscar-nominated Perfect Days, stem from an urge to contemplate on a place. 'Most American films are story-driven, but my interest is in place-driven works,' he adds. The 79-year-old’s decades-long interest in the American west in fact embodies this appetite for enigmatic sites with veiled narratives. Abandoned gas stations, spectral motel signs, and haunted theatres intrigue him with their untold tales and unexpected beauty. The show’s colourful images, overall titled Written in the West (1983), embody Wenders’s journey into the endless highways dotted with teeny towns of lulled lives. Deserted storefronts, poetic billboards, and moody motel lobbies date back to the director’s research for Paris, Texas which earned him Palm D’Or in Cannes Film Festival in 1984. 'They are an effort to understand the landscape, light, and colours of the American west,' explains Wenders who believes the pictures made him a 'conscious colour photographer.'

The son of a photographer father who eventually became a surgeon, Wenders grew up with a camera in his hand. Only during his journey into America’s arid lands decades later did he realise the possibility of photography as a profession. Today, he chooses the nature of his journey in each venture: 'Photography and film-making are two different sets of mind.'

Wenders’s favourite photograph from the show is Western World Development, near Four Corners, California (1986) which shows a lonely billboard erected amidst short bushes. “There were few stretches of roads crossing in the middle of a desert,' he remembers. The advertisement promotes a failed city development which was perhaps planned for construction. 'The sign was still there—I like making photographs of lost promises.'

Wim Wenders: Written Once is at Howard Greenburg gallery until March 15, 2025

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