contents
Photographs
p. 9 → 41
p. 2 → 7
p . 4 2 → 49
Artists —
Norber t Eilers
p. 50
Alexander Gehring
p. 52
Andrea Grützner
p. 54
Robert Schlotter
p. 56
Paula Winkler
p. 58
p. 60
Acknowledgements
p. 62
Beyond Irony
Written by Daniel Neugebauer
A brief inquiry into contemporary Romanticism
The shield of irony 1 most of us wear to counter the seductions of contemporary imagery can be seen as a device of protection against commercial messages, against an overf low of violence, etc. It can also be considered a tool for creativity and ref lection, of course, as the act of detaching or distancing oneself emotionally from a visual subject matter by means of an ironic attitude (laughing about Honey BooBoo, enjoying 1 — the pain of embarrassment in This text does not strive to add insights to the casting shows, making bitter d i s c u s s i o n o n t h e c o n c e p t o f i r o n y. I u s e i t jokes about images of war or more or less as a word from ever yday language disease, etc.) allows for a safer, that blends various discourses. more analytical view of images that might easily come too close. 2 — This defence mechanism, this Generally speaking of a postmodern state in shield of irony or whatever you which what is real and what is not real is wish to call it, does not only hard or impossible to decide on. Needless to have to be seen as a necessary say that thinkers like Baudrillard or Jameson tool for survival in a contem- h a v e m u c h m o r e t o s a y a b o u t t h i s i s s u e . porary world that is saturated with reality T V, but also, as I would like to put forward, can be considered a relatively new working field for artists, one that is based on the wish to move past the hyperreality 2 of the contemporary media world. W hen the creative manipulation of irony succeeds, another space of perception is opened, one which curator Katharina Bosse calls the Space
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Beyond. This terminolog y alludes to German Romanticism, the period when some of the most valuable ref lections on irony were made 3 , where man was perceived to be in a state of constant oscillation between a wish to reach the sublime and the strongly felt necessity for self-limitation and self-ref lection 4 . L o ok i n g a t t he a r t- 3 — works by A lexander Gehring, Paul de Man discusses the dif ficulties of the Paula Winkler, Norbert Eilers, ter m irony in his lec ture The concept of irony A ndrea Grützner and Robert f r o m 19 7 7, s p a n n i n g f r o m G e r m a n R o m a n t i c i s m Schlotter, a few recurring ele- t o K i e r k e g a a r d . h t t p : // w w w . c l a s . u f l . e d u / u s e r s / ments can be found that con- b u r t / u n i n t e l g b l e d e t h b y f l m / c o n c e p o f i r o n y . p d f nec t t hem to t he Rom a nt ic t r ad it ion: a combi n at ion of 4 — a) setting up an ex perimen- O f c o u r s e , t h i s i s a r e d u c e d s u m m a r y o f a v e r y tal framework for image pro- b r o a d d i s c u s s i o n . I m e r e l y e x t r a c t e d a b a s i c duction and, by doing so, b) dichotomy that proved suitable to work with in creating a space in which acci- t h i s l i t t l e t e x t . dents and surprises can occur. These, coupled with the aforementioned c) urgency to surpass a limiting postmodern hyperreality (as a contemporary addition to the Romantic concept), are the keys to the avoidance of ironic detachment – to enter the space beyond. The artists each create a sense of the space beyond from their particular fields of interest, which illuminates the range w ithin the topic: mediality, sexuality, archives, temporality, and architectural space. Pau la Win k ler spea k s about se x ua lit y within a self-created framework. She invented a fake persona, Renate Rost, who makes appointments with men she meets on Internet sex dating sites to take their photos in anonymous hotel rooms. The carefully created situation cannot be controlled fully by the artist; a mixture of danger, the thrill of anticipation, reconciliation, humiliation, and arousal fuel the space where the images are taken. With these images she tries to fill a void: the absence of the heterosexual female gaze on the male body. By stressing the formal aspect of the image (f lowery wallpaper echoes tattoos on the men’s bodies in a way that the demarcation of masculinity runs empty) together with the peculiar way of acquiring these images, Winkler is capable of lifting her series beyond the narra-
tional, beyond the anecdotal. The transgression from the online to the on-site world is made by sheer willpower. It’s a serious shift when curiosity conquers irony, a ping-pong of mutual objectifications. A lexander Gehring’s work which deals with spirituality and mediality can be connected most easily to a Romantic tradition: the image as a rectangular that allows us to “take a look at the other side”, to take on a traditional view of the artwork as a window to a hidden reality. Photography as a medium in terms of an artistic device versus photography as medium in the sense of giving access to unknown spiritual realities is the binary setup within which Gehring develops his artistic language. If we learn that Gehring looked at the works of Dr. Schrenck-Notzing, who infamously photographed “ghosts” as well as he tried to cure Thomas Mann of his homosexuality by some sort of exorcism, it is just too easy to laugh it away. Looking at Gehring’s photos, however, detached humour is hardly present. He takes us into a place of twilight, hints and glowing that can be perceived as a space of possibilities. Using “darkroom” in the title does not appear as a funny allusion, but rather it seems to be more of an echo of tragic misconceptions of the relation between art and life. These photos catch a light that does not want to create its own metaphor anymore but work as a metaphor that creates a decisive new reality. Messages from the Darkroom speak of false promises: a misconception of the work of the photographer and his role in society. Norbert Eilers uses archival methods to gain access to a trans-personal kind of imagery. Old hard drives are used as a source for random images that are filed by the artist according to visual content. A self-imposed limitation again gives access to an unplanned multitude of images. These archived files are then layered in the next step and form an archive of images. As we do not learn where the hard drives come from or whether the former owners are of any interest to us at all; there is no chance of enjoying the thrill of sneaking into another person’s private images like clicking through a friend of a friend’s unprotected Facebook albums. By “drying” the photos
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of any possible juiciness, Eilers strongly states that a photo is always a layering of experiences, meanings and context, and never a unique revelation of mystic truths or an innocent snapshot posted to a Facebook wall. The digital image is mostly archival in its construction. T he specif ic tec hnique t hat Rober t Schlotter uses in his exploration of memory is a way of condensing time by exposing scenes from found footage home videos to a photographic negative. He uses long exposure times, up to 1 second, which inevitably leads to a blurry effect. So it also has an archival quality, which he uses to speak about time. He takes amateur videos as a source to capture not only one image, but a multitude of images. This refuses the narrative effect of a film and focusses on the formal results. Maybe some resemblance to the “Zen-ness” in Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Drive-In-Theatres can be detected: not seeing the motif as an exercise in seeing. Definitely, Schlotter feels an urge to avoid a sweet and superficial melancholia of the omnipresent Instagram images or Lana del Rey music videos with their pretend-historicism. He creates hy per-images to counter hy perrealistic aesthetics. They are successful because they take on responsibility for the presented. They don’t celebrate the broken down distinction between what is true and what is not. Instead, they show the mechanism of our memory as a source for image production. A ndrea Grützner’s position, which deals with a particular kind of constructed space, connects Eilers’ interest in the relation between factual history and personal memory with Gehring’s attempts in making the invisible visible: a very particular Eastern German kind of guesthouse, called “Erbgericht”. The name itself but also the architecture feels like a fragment from the past. One special Erbgericht, located in rural Saxony where she partly grew up, put a spell on her so she keeps returning to take photos. Looking at the works, structure might be the most striking feature, and indeed it is actually the multitude of possible variations within the structure of the image that she’s interested in. She uses multi-
ple f lashes, some coloured, to achieve an effect of coloured shadows that aren’t visible to the obser ving eye, but only unfold in the camera, on the slide. You never see the full picture, you never hear the full story, is what they seem to say 5 . These images weirdly display a colourful quest for a collective memory, a candy-f lavoured anachronism in the best sense of the word. So should we call these 5 — artists contemporary Roman- N o t s u r p r i s i n g l y, G r ü t z n e r i s v e r y i n t e r e s t e d tics? I have show n that they i n Fo u c a ul t ’s c o n c e p t of H e te r oto p ia. move within the framework established by Romantic irony: 6 — they embrace “a space beyond” I t m i g h t a l s o b e h e l p f u l c o n s i d e r i n g t h i s s t a t e a s as a result of a particular pho- a n a l t e r m o d e r n o n e . N i c o l a s B o u r r i a u d s u g g e s tographic setup that opens up ted the term altermodern in 2005 to describe the a realm of possibilities. A nd cur rent s t ate of aes thetic s, pas t pos t- moder nism. they reject the space beyond as a supernatural source of inspiration. Additionally, their work is fuelled by the urgency of a missing element in contemporary discourse, the element of visually surpassing postmodernist hyperreality. Maybe this can be read as a step towards an image-production that tries to combine the seriousness of modernity with the disillusionment of postmodernity, a state that always touches notions of irony without ever dissolving in them. 6 The spaces beyond presented in this exhibition may be Romantic, ironic or Romantically ironic – they take us with them into their aesthetic realities while taking the responsibility to make us aware of their negotiations, the fragility and complexity of their creation.
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— Daniel Neugebauer is Head of Mar keting, Mediation, and Fundr aising at t he Van A b b emuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Prior to that, he worked at t h e K u n s t h a l l e B i e l e f e l d , G e r m a n y, a n d f r e e l a n c e d for Mar t a Her ford and the Lehmbr uckMuseum, Duisburg, b o t h i n G e r m a n y. H e h a s w o r ke d o n a v a r i e t y o f exhibitions and publications with numerous ar tists over the past few years.
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The space beyond
Written by Katharina Bosse
Dark room Bright light Dark room Vince Clark
Memory 1 —
W hen I was a child, I watched my parents talk. They loved words, and chose them carefully. Listening in, their language felt more like a false bottom than a safety net and left me with the need to be alert. I tried to grasp the meaning of their words — which word had been used to cover up another? In my mind, I created a negative space out of their speech, filled with unspoken words.
W a l t e r B e n j a m i n u s e d t h e t e r m “o p t i c a l u n c o n s c i o u s ” i n h i s 19 31 e s s a y A S h o r t H i s to r y o f Ph o to g r a p hy. I t describes the ability of photography to captures nuances that a spectator cannot consciously perceive ( li ke E a d w e a r d M u y b r i d g e’s g all o p i n g hor se). Ros alind K r aus s c alls these d e t a i l s “p a r a l l e l s t o s l i p s o f t o n g u e o r p e n ”, t h r o u g h w h i c h a p e r s o n ’ s u n c o n s cious s ur f aces into view. Her s ubs e -
Space, No Speech
quent ques tion, ”But what can we speak of in the visual field that will
The space beyond is The Place of No Speech, the photographic unconscious 1 . Unknown territory, uninhabitable, even for images. “Today is the last day that I am using words,” said Madonna 2, or, from Wittgenstein’s phi losophica l point of view, “W hereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”3 He also stated: “W hat can be said at all can be said clearly”, excellent advice for any photographer. Using a method comparable to inverted selection, one can say that three features of photography define that vast expanse of space: image frame, exposure time, and picture plane.
b e a n a nalo g u e of t he ‘u nco ns c io u s’ it s elf, a s t r uc t ure t hat p re s up p os e s first a sentient being within which it operates, and second, a struc ture that only makes sense insofar as it i s i n c o nf li c t w i t h t hat b e i n g’s c o n s cious n e s s? C a n t h e o p t i c a l f i e l d… h av e a n u n c o n s c i o u s? “ R o s a l i n d Krauss, The Optical Unconscious, C a m b r i d g e : M I T P r e s s , 19 9 4 p .17 8 .
2 — “L e t ’s G e t U n c o n s c i o u s“ M a d o n n a , B e d - T i m e S t o r i e s , 19 9 5 .
3 — L u d w i g W i t t g e n s t e i n , Tr a c t a t u s L o g i c o -
Frame
P h i l o s o p h i c u s , [19 2 1] , B e r t r a n d R u s sell (contributor) and C.K. Ogden,
Stephen Shore: “One of the bigger problems of people starting photography,” according to Shore, “is that they are thinking of photography as pointing
t r a n s l a t o r. S e e h t t p : // w w w . g u t e n b e r g . o r g / e b o o k s / 5 74 0 , l a s t a c c e s s e d : N o v e m b e r 2 6 , 2 0 13 . 42
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and not framing, so they’re looking at an object and their field of perception k ind of dissipates as it gets to the edge, like the way a rock song fades out.” He argues that failing to note what is at the edge of the frame is an abdication of the photographer’s responsibility. “It’s avoiding the decisiveness of saying, ‘Here’s the last note.’ In a photograph, there is always a last note.” 4 Time
John Szarkowski: “Uniquely in the history of pictures, a photograph describes only that period of time in which it was made. Photography alludes to the past and the future only insofar as they exist in the present, the past through its surviving relics, the future through prophecy visible in the present.”5 Picture Plane
T he surface of the print, the 4 — screen on which the f lattened space is S t e p h e n S h o r e , i n a n i n t e r v i e w w i t h fixed. This surface is an object — I can N o a h S h e l d o n a n d R o g e r W h i t e i n : touch it — as well as a place for photo- A S X : A m e r i c a n S u b u r b X , J u n e 2 0 0 5 . graphic composition, where the aim is to create the illusion of space or exhibit 5 — a lack of depth. Henri Cartier-Bresson: J o h n S z a r k o w s k i , T h e P h o t o g r a p h e r ’ s “The photographer‘s eye is perpetually E y e , N e w Yo r k : T h e M u s e u m o f evaluating. A photographer can bring M o d e r n A r t , 19 6 6 , p .1 0 . coincidence of line simply by moving his head a fraction of a millimeter. He can 6 — modify perspectives by a slight bending H e n r i C a r t i e r - B r e s s o n , T h e D e c i s i v e of the knees. By placing the camera closer M o m e n t , N e w Yo r k : S i m o n & S c h u s t e r, to or farther from the subject, he draws 19 5 2 . a detail — and it can be subordinated, or he can be tyrannized by it. But he composes a picture in very nearly the same amount of time it takes to click the shutter, at the speed of a ref lex action … One does not add composition as though it were an afterthought superimposed on the basic subject material, since it is impossible to separate content from form. Composition must have its own inevitability about it.” 6 I think of the pictorial unconscious as that which is not depicted in the image. The pictorial plane, then, is the location of (metaphorical) consciousness.
According to this analog y, the subconscious of photography would be the rolls of exposed film, the contact sheets, hard drives, and memory cards. Storage for pictures — unpublished, yet accessible.
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A ny photographer is always thinking about the framing, the exposure time and composition, the way the space is f lattened, or an illusion of depth created. This is the photographer’s language, her visual grammar. The space beyond, however, is not as antithetical, as passive as one might think, considering the phrase is a metaphor for the absence of any kind of language, not even images.
Clark Worswick, Berenice Abbott/
Andy Gr undberg, Crisis of the Real, N e w Yo r k , A p e r t u r e 19 9 1, p . 3 2
8 — A q u ote of a r ea c t i o n to w a r d Atg e t ’s t hen - unk now n wor k, recounte d in:
Eugène Atget, Arena Editions, 2 0 0 2 , p . 41 .
photograph — Ancien hôtel des archevêques d e S e n s , 19 2 1, E u g è n e A t g e t
The Absent
How does a photograph point towards the invisible? One could base the history of photography on the absent. A few examples: A ndy Grundberg on A nsel Adams’ landscape photography: “It shows us a natural world so precisely ordered and so cleansed of ills that we might suspect it had been sanitized by a cosmic disinfecting agent in advance of the photographer’s appearance on the scene.” 7
Eugène Atget, the deser ted, but not sanitized “p i c t u r e s o f P a r i s w i t h n o p e o p l e i n ’ e m ”. 8
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A n d r é K e r t é s z , D i s t o r s i o n n o . 4 6 , 19 3 3
Pierre Borhan remarked on the “Distortions” by A ndré Kertész, and on the initial collective reticence toward his work: “The Distortions are no more mythological than they are erotic or sentimental, nor more humanist than romantic; so devoid of pathos, so distilled, they deprived the public of reference points, visual or otherwise … Kertész’s genius is … that he placed these startling nudes in suspension, outside the world and outside time. Fragments of an obscure totality, each of these variations was inscribed in an invisible frame.”9
9 — Pi e r r e B o h a n, e d ., A n d re Ke r te s z: His Life and Work, Paris: E d i t i o n s d e S e u i l , 19 9 4 , p .19 9 I n M a r c h 19 3 3 , t w e l v e d i s t o r t i o n s were published in the journal Le Sourire, accompanied by a tex t by A i m é - P a u l B a r a n c y, F e n ê t r e o u v e r t e s u r l’a u - d e l à (O p e n W i n d o w o n t h e B eyo n d ).
The following are a few concepts of the absent referenced in images:
The abstract, with its pronounced absence of the pictorial. The informe (formlessness) of Dali and Bataille — entropy of form through alteration.10 The surreal — not only in pictures made
10 — “These objec t s — ps ycho, at mos pher ic, a n d a n a m o r p h i c — w e h a v e a l r e a d y been told, are complex reconstruc-
by Surrealists and their
tions, made in the dark, of an
study of the subcons-
from among many others. The re-
cious, but also in the inherently surreal quality of the medium. “Photography is the only art that is natively surreal“ through “its irrefutable pathos as a message from time past.”
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original object, chosen in the dark
construc tion, allowed to drop (still in the dark) from ninet y-foot height, to render it unrecognizable even if able to be seen, is then photographed. Still without being looked at, this photograph is then sunk into a molten cube of met al, which hardens around it. This reproduced shadow o f a n u n s e e n s h a d o w, i n t h e v i s e o f i t s now iner t c as e, o ur w r iter will s ubs e q uently refer to as infor me, unfor me d. O u r w r i t e r, w h o c a n o n l y b e S a l v a d o r D a l i …“, p u b l i s h e d i n : R o s a l i n d K r a u s s , C o r p u s D e l i c t i , O c t o b e r, v o l . 3 3 , s u m m e r 19 8 5 , p p . 3 1 — 7 2 .
11 — S u s a n S o n t a g, O n Ph o to g r a p hy, N e w Yo r k : P i c a d o r, 19 7 3 , p . 51 .
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The absurd, in Camus’ sense: the confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world. Evanescence, a topic not only for Susan Sontag, to whom photographs were “melancholic objects”, but also for Roland Barthes, who writes extensively about the stillness of the photograph. For him, a picture taken and removed from passing time is a reference to death. “For Death must be somewhere in a society; if it is no longer (or less intensely) in religion, it must be
André Ker tész, Lajos Tihanyi, P a r i s 19 2 6
elsewhere; perhaps in this image which produces Death while trying to preserve life.“ 12
12 — Ro la n d Ba r t h e s, Ca me ra Lu ci d a: R e f l e c t i o n s o n Ph o to g r a p hy, R i c h a r d H o w a r d , t r a n s l . , N e w Yo r k : H i l l a n d W a n g , 19 8 1 .
The announcement of something about to end is what captures my gaze in Robert Schlotter’s images. The long exposure photographs of old-fashioned amateur movies fragment time in a different way than Cartier-Bresson‘s ref lex ac t ion shot s. S c h lotter‘s photog raph s appear to be passive repositories in which the moving image is caught. Movies coagulated into photography, losing their dimension of time; what is left on the surface is the light of the projection lamp, bordered by a dark frame. The images in Memories and How to Get Them, with their eerie quality of a ghostly road trip, make me t hin k of t he passing of time, t he death of Roland Barthes.
13 — “If this once I were to rely on a pro ver b, then per haps ever y thing would amount to knowing whom I ’ h a u n t .‘ ( … ) S u c h a w o r d m e a n s much more than it s ays, makes me, s till alive, play a ghos tly par t, evidently referring to what I must have ceased to be in order to be w h o I a m .” A n d r é B r e t o n , N a d j a , G r o v e / A t l a n t i c I n c , 19 6 0 8 ( p .11 )
14 — “J u s t a m i n u t e , ” s a i d A n g e l , a f t e r a m o m e nt ’s r e f l e c t i o n. “L e t ’s t r y a n o t h e r e x p e r i m e n t . Tr y f o r o n e w h o l e moment — and be absolutely sincere about it — to completely stop wanting
In A lexander Gehring’s Messages from the Darkroom I feel a similar sense of the softening and transformation of the photographic scene. The analog y of the medium as person/camera becomes a transgression, a trigger of the uncanny. As form and transparency alter, preternatural appearances double limited human existence. 13 Red Technicolor light signals that I am on a movie set, in a photographer’s darkroom, and something is inevitably about to happen. The occult evokes fear and desire, a psychological undercurrent for that which is absent. 14
ot h e r p e o p l e’s d e s i r e s, a n d s e e w h a t h a p p e n s . Tr y . B u t d o n ’ t c h e a t .” “O. K .,” s a i d T i m o r t i s . They stopped by the side of the road. They psychiatrist closed his eyes, seemed to take a deep breath and then relax. Angel watched h i m c l o s e l y. Something like a kind of colored c r a c k c r e p t a c r o s s T i m o r t i s’s c o m plexion and features. Slyly a paler shade of transparency seemed to absorb and take over the visible par t s of his body— his hands, his throat, his face.
Privacy by Design, by Norbert Eilers, is the “cloud of fantasy with pellets of information” 15 , in serious need of deghosting, as I am looking at a stack of layer upon layer of deceptive appropriation. T hese fami liar, yet completely unrecognizable images point toward the emptiness that is inherent in a digitally adjusted and over-stimu lated societ y, stripped of all privacy.
“ L o o k a t y o u r f i n g e r s …” murmured Angel. T imo r t is o p e ne d his almo s t colo rless eyes. Through the back of his right hand he could see a black flint glinting on the road. Then, as he pulled himself together again, the transparency was washed away like the tide and his melting flesh grew solid again. “ T h e r e, y o u s e e,” s a i d A n g e l .
A ndrea Grützner’s images throw me into the void of f lattened space. The way the light cuts through the construction reminds me of Gordon Matta-Clark’s chainsaw. W here his art bordered on
“ W h e n yo u’r e c o m p l e t e l y r e l a x e d , y o u j u s t d o n ’ t e x i s t a n y m o r e .” F r o m : B o r i s V i a n , H e a r t s n a t c h e r, St a n l ey C h a p m a n, t r a n s l., C h a m p a i g n: D a l k e y A r c h i v e P r e s s , 19 6 8 .
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vandalism, Grützner’s Erbgericht is like 15 — a performance for herself only, lasting S o n t a g 19 7 3 for the fraction of time it takes to fire a f lash. A n alchemistic endeavor, looking for gold at the end of the rainbows colors, in an outmoded and dilapidated Eastern German building. Immersing myself in her work, I find myself alone with a naked guy in a hotel room. Pau la Win k ler’s f lash — a specific k ind of f lash — cheap, amateurish, used in the 1990s by Juergen Teller or Marcelo Krasilcic to deconstruct fashion photography — discloses the presence of the photog rapher. A lon g w it h her st ra i ght for w a rd ly architectural composition, the technique effectively dissects voyeurism: present here are an apparatus and an operator, running an art application. Patterns on skin and patterns on walls create rhythm, not romance. The space the models inhabit is angular, no soft bedding or curved pillows for these men. The images can be read in many ways: as a ref lection on the process of making images. As a gender study, a role reversal of the body as object. The virtual space in which the Exceptional Encounter began, abundant with sexual needs and fantasies, now absent. Unless the fantasy were to be pinned to a wall, like a butterf ly, by a female photographer’s gaze. Like the unconscious, the space beyond photography has a way of being present through its absence. W hen people look at images, they will imagine space and time; when they see shallow surfaces, they long for depth, and fill the void with whatever thought, emotion, or memories well up from inside.
( s e e n o t e 11 ) p . 6 9.
Norbert Eilers *1976 Aurich, Germany
— graduated from the FH Bielefeld University in 2012. His work links abstrac t photography with contemporary issues like data mining. Eilers has had exhibitions in several galleries in Germany, and in 2011, he was a finalist for the Still Image Prize, Royal College of Art, London. w w w.le k r ac h.co m
2 0 13 — Privacy by Desig n Bunker Ulmenwall Galler y Bielefeld, Germany 2 0 12 — Privacy by Desig n d a m e n u n d h e r r e n e .V. G a l l e r y D ü s s e l d o r f, G e r ma ny
Werkschau A r t G a l l e r y, F H B i e l e f e l d U n i v e r s i t y Bielefeld, Germany 2 0 11 — Still Image Prize Dyson Building Galler y Royal College of Ar t London, UK
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2 0 12 3 5 , 4 x 2 7, 5 i n c h e s , 2 7, 5 x 3 5 , 4 i n c h e s Digital C-Print
Alexander Gehring *1981 Bielefeld, Germany
— lives in Berlin. He studied at the FH Bielefeld University, as well as at the London College of Communication, and graduated in 2011. Gehring’s work has been shown in international museums and galleries, most recently in Experimental at the Galeria Tagomago, Paris. He is represented by pavlov‘s dog gallery in Berlin. w w w.alex a n d erg e hr ing.co m
2 0 13 — Experimental G a l e r i a Ta g o m a g o Paris, France
This is Not Berlin Kunst verein Kevelaer Germany 2 0 12 — Zeitg e s p e nste r Museum Morsbroich Lever kusen, Ger many
Messages from the Darkroom War te für Kunst Galler y Kas sel, Ger many
Messages from the Darkroom pavlov ‘s d og galler y Berlin, Ger many
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Messages from the Darkroom
2 0 11 19, 7 0 x 2 1, 3 0 i n c h e s , 2 1, 3 0 x 19, 7 0 i n c h e s , 14 , 2 0 x 14 , 2 0 i n c h e s , 14 , 2 0 x 15 ,15 i n c h e s Analog C-Print
Andrea Grützner *1984 Pirna, Germany
— studies photography and new media in the graduate arts and design program at the FH Bielefeld University. Her work has been seen in magazines and exhibitions. Grützner is a contributor to the German art photography magazine Der Greif. She lives in Berlin. w w w . a n d r e a g r u e t z n e r. d e
2 0 11 — Do n’t Lose the Juice A r t G a l l e r y, F H B i e l e f e l d U n i v e r s i t y Bielefeld, Germany 2 010 — Die Literatten Cultural Center Constance Cons t ance, Ger many 2009 — Werkschau Ar ts Center Cons t ance, Ger many
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Erbgericht
2 0 13 3 9. 4 x 5 9 i n c h e s , 2 3 . 6 x 3 5 . 4 i n c h e s Archival Pigment Print
Robert Schlotter *1981 Jena, Germany
— graduated in 2009 from FH Bielefeld University. His work has been shown internationally, most recent in Linger On! at the Goethe Institute in Washington, D.C. Schlotter has published a number of artist’s books. He promotes ar tist’s editions on www.malenki.net and blogs on www.disappearing-architecture.com. w w w . r o b e r t s c h l o t t e r. c o m
2 0 13 — Linger On! Goethe Ins titute, Wa s hi n g to n, D.C . 2 0 12 — Ve r w e il e D o c h! Ar ts Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt Halle, Ger many
Photofestival Copenhagen, Denmar k 2 010 — I was Here C e n t r e N a t i o n a l d e l ’A u d i o v i s u e l , Dudelange, Lu xembourg 2008 — Contemporar y Ar t Ruhr Essen, Ger many
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Memories and How to Get Them
2009 4 3 . 31 x 3 3 . 4 6 i n c h e s Archival Pigment Print
Paula Winkler *1980 Berlin, Germany
— studied photography and new media at FH Bielefeld University. Her work has been shown in Europe, as well as in the United States. Winkler has been published in magazines, including the British Journal of Photography, and Missy. Her new work, Centerfolds, will be on display at the European Photo Exhibition Awards at Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany. w w w . p a u l a w i n k l e r. c o m 2 0 15 — The New Social Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Germany 2 0 13 — Male Nudes - Female Desires G a l e r i e Ta n j a W a g n e r Berlin, Ger many 2 0 12 — British Journal of Photography publication 2 0 11 — Tr a u t e s H e i m , G l ü c k a l l e i n Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Ger many 2 010 — Leben, Lieben, Leiden Ar t Institute Celle Celle, Ger many (c at.)
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Exceptional Encounter
2 0 11 2 7, 5 x 3 9 i n c h e s Archival Pigment Print
Katharina Bosse *1968 Turku, Finnland
— is an artist and professor in the Photography Department of the FH Bielefeld University in Germany. Her work has been exhibited widely at museums and galleries in Europe and the U.S. The work can be found in many public collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Museé d’Art National Moderne, Paris. Her editorial work was featured in magazines including The New Yorker, Spin, Wired, Der Spiegel, Geo, and the New York Times Magazine. 2 0 11 —
w w w.k at har inab o s s e.co m
A Por trait of the A r tist a s a Yo u n g M o t h e r Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany 2 0 1 0 / 11 — elles@centrepompidou Centre Pompidou Paris, France Books and Catalogues (Selec ted) 2009
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A Por trait of the A r tist
A Por trait of the A r tist
a s a Yo u n g M o t h e r
a s a Yo u n g M o t h e r
F i l i g r a n e s , P a r i s , a n d K e h r e r,
Galerie Anne Barrault
H e i d e l b e r g , 2 0 11
Paris, France
— New Burlesque, Editions Filigranes,
2002
P a r i s 2 0 0 3 , D . A . P. , N e w Yo r k , 2 0 0 4
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L i f e o f t h e C i t y, P h o t o g r a p h s o f N e w
S u r f a c e Te n s i o n ,
Yo r k f r o m t h e M u s e u m ‘ s c o l l e c t i o n
Monogr aph, K r use, Hamburg 20 0 0
Museum of Modern Ar t
( i n t h e U S d i s t r i b u t e d b y D . A . P. ,
N e w Yo r k , U S A
M a r c h 2 0 01)
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Classroom
19 9 8 40 x 30 inches C-print
Acknowledgements I teach from my life’s experience, using quotes from my own teachers and clients, or questions I had when I was a student. Teaching is a conversation, going back and forth, solving riddles together about the meaning of photography. A Long List of “Thank You” Notes: First: my mother, who was the family’s photographer. A lthough I was rarely allowed to touch my grandfather’s historic cameras, which she used, watching her measure the light, happy with taking pictures on an Easter Morning, inspired me. My father, who, after modeling in one of my shootings, bought Vilém Flusser’s Towards a Philosophy of Photography in order to rethink this experience in light of theory. My younger sister, for being my first and most adventurous model (high up on a Church Tower). My older sister, for helping me out on shoots. The crew of the darkroom in high school, where I skipped class to go make prints. My teachers are like miniatures inside of me; I conjure up a situation, an image, and a sentence. Peter Hendricks, who taught me serious black-and-white printing: lab coat, cigarette dangling, his sigh: “How can anyone be so slow…” The teachers, who turned the FH Bielefeld into a place of experiment and freedom: Gottfried Jäger, Karl-Heinz Holzhäuser, Jörg Boström, and Jürgen Heinemann. Not to forget Joachim Brohm. Their critique generally ended with “Just do it” (“mach mal”). At FH Bielefeld I met my peers, without whom I would have never discovered what it’s like to dive so deeply into discussions of photography. The students from around 1988 are a group of incredibly talented, curious, and energetic people. Their sharing, ref lections, and book projects, not to mention witnessing them curate, (Fotoforum Schwarzbunt) still nourish me. Thanks to Peter Raffelt and Oliver Llaneza for founding Bildwerk, a photojournalism agency that started with a fax machine in my living room (and, of course, thanks to all the members). Your approach to magazine photography was an inspiration. Eva Bodemer, Renate Hempel, Frank Schumacher, Jürgen Schmidt and ever yone in Cologne who decided we could build a two-stor y, multi-cabin color darkroom in an old industrial loft, with recycled materials and no money. It worked.
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Katharina Bosse
W hen I came to New York in 1994, Joel Sternfeld and Bruce Fizzell took me in at Exhibition Prints, where I learned that it was okay to consider the implications of a half-point of yellow for 20 minutes. Meeting artists who allowed me insight into their creative sensitivity gave me a home in more ways than one. Thanks to all the editors, art dealers, curators, and publishers in the business who accepted me. You taught me so much about the world of photography, how it feels to share a vision, and that patience is useful. I would especially like to thank all my friends who are photographers and are apparently unable to give it up. The conversations and email with you are what keeps me going, A nd thank you, my children Maxine and Leo, for being the great and funny people you are and for walking like Charlie Chaplin. Thank you to my students at FH Bielefeld, who trust me with their projects and ideas. To the artists who agreed to be in this show: A lex, Paula, Robert, A ndrea, and Norbert, for their energ y and dedication and, of course, for their amazing work. Thanks to Erica Shires and Daniel Mirer, Biggi Kottmann, Christoph Perels, A llison Moseley, Barbara Sauermann, and John Stanley for help with the text. Standing ovations to Daniel Neugebauer and Erin la Cour, for the fabulous Beyond Irony. Thank you to the following: John Stanley and the staff at CCN Y, New York, for allowing us this great opportunity. FH Bielefeld, for being a sponsor and a good place for creating photography and design books. Rรถmerturm, and Calumet, Berlin, for support. Christian Eusterhus, for his dedication in the printing process. Heinrich Holtgreve, for the pre-print photo processing. A nd Dirk Sonnenberg, for the fantastic graphic design.
This catalogue is published on the occasion
Bibliographic information published
of the exhibition The space beyond,
by the Deutsche Bibliothek. The
guest curated by Katharina Bosse for
Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbiblio-
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e t d u P a t r i m o i n e /A n d r é K e r t é s z
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A l l i s o n M o s e l e y, B a r b a r a S a u e r m a n n (Katharina Bosse)
No par t of this book may be repro-
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Katharina Bosse & the Ar tists:
Bielefeld, Facult y of Ar t s and Design,
A l e x a n d e r G e h r i n g , R o b e r t S c h l o t t e r,
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