Gosbert Adler
dal 6/4/2011 al 15/7/2011
Segnalato da
6/4/2011
Gosbert Adler
Gallery zone E, Essen
Brot: autobiographical photographs from the 1980s, presented in a new edition. His pictures depict seemingly trivial, mundane scenes. Always serial and limited to a few themes, they explore the specific aesthetic scope of photography, which sees itself as documentary and is aware of its absolute subjectivity.
Gosbert Adler’s internationally acclaimed photography questions reality without claiming to offer definitive answers. His pictures depict seemingly trivial, mundane scenes. Always serial and limited to a few themes, they explore the specific aesthetic scope of photography, which sees itself as documentary and is aware of its absolute subjectivity. In his conscious choices of perspective, detail, focus and colour, Adler constantly reflects the possibilities and constraints of his medium.
As Thomas Weski wrote in his essay in the catalogue for the exhibition “Gosbert Adler – Die Zelle” at Hanover’s Sprengel Museum in 1994: “Gosbert Adler’s images represent an attempt to redefine photography in its purest form. By focusing on seemingly banal themes and showing visual appreciation for the culture of everyday, they represent a strategy of refusing that photography has already said and shown everything.”
The exhibition at Zone E in Essen shows autobiographical photographs from the 1980s, presented in a new edition. After Adler’s graduation in 1981, they won him his first scholarship – the Award for Contemporary German Photography from the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Stiftung.
Gosbert Adler studied at the renowned Folkwangschule in Essen under Prof. Dr. Otto Steinert, Prof. Erich vom Endt, Michael Schmidt and Prof. Angela Neuke, alongside Joachim Brohm, Andreas Gursky, Volker Heinze and Knut Maron. The lab at this first professional colour photography department in a German university set up by Erich vom Endt set the scene for fundamental discourses among the Folkwang students. (Ute Eskildsen exhibited Adler’s first colour photographs from 1977–83 at the Museum Folkwang as early as 1984). Adler was awarded numerous photography prizes and awards, among them Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Award for Contemporary Photography, which he received in 1982, and the Werner Mantz Award. His works are represented in many international collections, among them Museum Folkwang, Essen; The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Photographic Collection of Berlinische Galerie, Berlin. Gosbert Adler teaches at the Braunschweig University of Art as Professor for Photography.
Knut Wolfgang Maron-Dorn
Marc Grümmert
Opening reception: Thursday, 7 April at 7.30 pm
zone E
Kahrstr. 49 . D-45128 Essen