| | | | | | | | | Max Scheler: "Untitled",Paris Champs-Élysées, 14 July 1952 © Max Scheler | | | | | UNTITLED | | | | | | | 29 June – 15 October 2021 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Donata Wenders: 'Getting Ready', Paris 2000
© Donata Wenders / Courtesy Johanna Breede PHOTOKUNST | | | | | | When the gallery doors open again after more than a year of Corona restrictions and lockdowns, the question arises: what have we missed the most? What have we suffered the most from? Under the most modest of all titles, Johanna Breede's UNTITLED invites us to a concert of wishes that holds a whole grab bag of answers. Here "untitled" does not mean without a concept, but rather elevates the greatest possible freedom, for which we have longed for so long. It is the freedom of choice granted to each or every one of the gallery's 27 photographers or estates to present their favourite motif. Be it the classics like Hannes Kilian, Liselotte Strelow, Stefan Moses, Robert Lebeck, Ulrike Ottinger and Barbara Klemm or the photographers of the next generation like Donata Wenders and Jens Knigge, they all share the focus on analogue black-and-white photography.
What one might prosaically call an accrochage or, pejoratively a potpourri, challenges both the gallery owner and the visitors to discover not only the black and white thread in the heterogeneous diversity, but perhaps also visual axes and narratives. Thus, against the background of the pandemic experience, the random compilation could be told as a story of longing, for outlook and permissiveness, for human closeness and touch, for pure joie de vivre and tense anticipation. | | | | | | | | | Sheila Rock: 'JOY', 1987
© Sheila Rock / Courtesy Johanna Breede PHOTOKUNST | | | | | | Thus, with Barbara Klemm, we direct our "View from the Russian Museum St. Petersburg" from 2012 through the round-arched mullioned window and almost have to squint, so much does the glittering water dazzle in the backlighting that plunges the interior into deep darkness. The harsh black-and-white contrast between inside and outside not only has a formal quality, but also creates an almost solemn pathos.
In contrast, fashion photographer Sheila Rock captures pure joie de vivre in her 1987 photo "Joy", in which a young woman does a little hop or literal leap of joy that makes her white pleated skirt bob over her black stockings. As if expecting all the happiness in the sky, she has thrown her head laughingly back and spread her arms as if skipping rope. Joyful or rather tense anticipation is also palpable in Donata Wender's photo "Getting Ready", 2000, which shows three young women backstage getting ready for the evening or the catwalk with their hair pinned up, bare shoulders and bare arms. The depth of field not only conveys their inner tension and movement, but also covers the action like a delicate veil of romance.
Meanwhile, the romantic relationship between the 'Young Couple on the Ammersee', 1959 by Herbert List, appears slightly disturbed by the photographer. While the man's naked figure lovingly places his arm on the woman's shoulder, she seems en face to be flirting more with the camera than her boyfriend. In any case, she is fully aware of the photographic situation to which he turns his back. | | | | | | | | | Herbert List: 'Junges Paar am Ammersee', 1959
© Herbert List / Courtesy Johanna Breede PHOTOKUNST | | | | | | Completely unmoved by what is happening behind her, is the old woman in hat and umbrella photographed by Max Scheler in Paris on 14 July 1952. She does not allow herself to be driven away from her seat on a bench, which is misused by spectators as a platform to get a better view of the parade for the French bank holidays.
In addition to the stories of longing, curiosity and expectation, however, another narrative of loneliness and isolation could be pursued, as conveyed in the large platinum print "Neighborhood", 2015 by Jens Knigge. The house lies completely lonely, only dimly emerging from the grey in grey of its surroundings. The contact print presents itself in unsparing immediacy; it is not enlarged but contacted and exposed one-to-one via a large internegative with the sensitised paper.
Depending on taste and mood, the open concept of the exhibition encourages visitors to develop their own axes of vision and thought games. For those who allow themselves to be stimulated by this, Jens Knigge's narrow section of the picture from the sloping roof of the "Pregnant Oyster" becomes a ramp on which at least thoughts can easily take off.
Dorothea Zwirner | | | | | | | | | Jens Knigge: 'Schwangere Auster', 2000
© Jens Knigge / Courtesy Johanna Breede PHOTOKUNST | | | | | | unsubscribe here
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© 24 Jun 2021 photo-index UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
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Editor: Claudia Stein & Michael Steinke
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