22/1/2015
Karl Blossfeldt
Tarq, Mumbai
Art Forms in Nature. The exhibition prresents photographic plant portraits, which were created to support his argument that all forms created by man, have their origins in nature.
A photographer and professor at the Royal School of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin, Karl Blossfeldt (1865–1932) is recognised for his extensive and unique photographic plant portraits, which were created to support his argument that all forms created by man, have their origins in nature.
His unique photographs reveal the tactile qualities, intricate forms and peculiar aspects of flora which, when magnified transform to resemble architectural structures and the ornamented patterned surfaces of modernist designs. Blossfeldt’s fusion of scientific observation, sculptural form and abstract compositions pioneered an artistic style that forged new approaches to modern art and photography.
Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) was a German artist and professor at the Royal School of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin where he taught from 1898-1932, who dedicated his entire career to studying and photographing organic forms. Encouraged by his professor and mentor Moritz Meurer, who believed, like Gottfried Semper the architect arguing in the mid-nineteenth century, that the arts, akin to nature, were based on certain archetypal forms, Blossfeldt built a homemade camera and lens that could magnify a subject up to thirty times its size and began to take close up photographs of plants. His photographic investigation of the underlying structures of natural forms was meant to demonstrate this hypothesis, and in doing so, produce a pedagogical source for German designers, belonging to both creative and industrial disciplines.
Image: Karl Blossfeldt, Plate45 from Urformen
Opening:Fiday 23 January 2015
Tarq
F35/36 Dhanraj Mahal,
C.S.M. Marg,Apollo Bunder,
Colaba, Mumbai - 400 001.