Can a mass phenomenon be art? Since the invention of photography in the first half of the 19th century, artists and audiences have been grappling with this question. What elevates an everyday object that is part of our daily perception to an art object? Where are the boundaries between art and commerce? Are these boundaries still relevant today? In the digital age, where cell phone cameras and digital forms of marketing are always available and easy to use, photography has become more popular on the one hand, but at the same time more valued than ever in the art market.
Let’s take portrait photography as an example, or more precisely, the self-portrait. The urge for self-portrayal is a primal human phenomenon. The first self-portraits by artists such as Albrecht Dürer or Parmigianino bear witness to the beginnings of individualism and the self-critical observation of the self. Today, the display of one’s own body is more due to the greed for self-expression and attention.
In his series “Cycle of Banality”, Thai Ho Pham devotes himself to this new type of portrait by distorting portraits and self-portraits taken with a camera. The artist prints randomly selected snapshots on canvas and paints over them with oil paint. Through this act, Thai Ho Pham creates a field of tension between the classic motif of portrait painting and the reckless nature of cell phone photography. He separates the photos from their trivial context and thus elevates them from triviality to art.
One of the most classic subjects of photography is architectural photography. As part of the architectural discourse, the photography of architectural monuments primarily took on a documentary function. Photographer Günter Schmid shows experimental works alongside his strictly oriented and perfectly staged architectural photographs. Schmid shows an interplay between urban buildings and urban life. Schmid’s photographs follow the principles of architectural photography with their symmetry, love of rows, repetition and central perspective. At the same time, the photographer enriches them with atmospheric plays of color, playful details and experimental motifs. The people in his pictures make the mostly urban spaces their own, in which they sometimes lose themselves or linger in a relaxed matter-of-factness.
Holger Zimmermann ‘s photographs are also dedicated to architecture. In contrast to Schmid, he does not show people in his motifs. Instead, he shows places that take on a special significance precisely because of the absence of visitors. His photographs of abandoned places tell of decay and transience. Swimming pools, churches and residential buildings, which gained function through their visitors, are left to their fate after closure and thus deprived of their raison d’être. What remains are houses whose former glory is slowly fading. The works display a morbid charm that bears witness to longing and always looks to the past. Over the course of time, through vandalism and demolition, the places are subject to constant change despite their backward-looking nature. Zimmermann’s photographs are therefore snapshots that capture transience in the image.
Raymond Gantner finds a completely different way of approaching the medium of photography. With his chemical analog photographs, he completely dispenses with representationalism. Where photography likes to score points with staging and precise planning, Gantner makes use of chance. In this way, the artist not only breaks away from the expectations placed on him, he also interprets photography in a new way.
In his freedom of motifs and working methods, the photographer draws on the principle of deconstruction. Like the deconstructivists, Gantner dares to analytically dissolve structures beyond recognition, propagating freedom of meaning and the courage to embrace so-called “meaninglessness”. Following on from Dadaism, he playfully deals with sense and nonsense, with meaning and interpretation of art, using the atypical medium of photography.