13/9/2012
At Home
zone B, Berlin
Gosbert Adler's and Knut Wolfgang Maron's respective photographs "Interior" and "One Life" take a close look at their mothers' living environments, documented in the course of many years.
Gosbert Adler’s and Knut Wolfgang’s respective series "Interieur" (Interior) and "Ein Leben" (One Life) take a close look at their mothers’ living environments, documented in the course of many years. An apartment and a house, filled with things from a life gone by, solely known to the family of today in form of memories. The mothers are the only remaining inhabitants of these rooms, surrounded by furniture and everyday objects, which have become a kind of archive, in that they have been there a lifetime and no longer require any kind of modernisation.
Adler’s black and white photographs of jars, views into cupboards and drawer contents focus on the signs of an existence, which has long since accepted its own disappearance. The people themselves are as absent as the life once lived, visible only as a reflection in the arrangements of containers and cups.
Maron’s portraits of his critically ill mother are paired with photographs of objects from his parents’ house, which allow the artist’s relationship to her to appear to already be a memory. "The desire to skip the stage of forgetting and to provide the life they reflect with a seamless continuity between existence and memory, materialises in the archive of his images." (translated from: Andreas Steffens ,"Totenmaske einer Lebenswelt" [Deathmask of a Lifeworld])
Galerie zone B is showing a selection from both series.
Gosbert Adler and Knut Wolfgang Maron met in the late 1970s studying at Folkwang Hochschule Essen, where they soon turned their attention to colour photography. Along with Joachim Brohm, Andreas Gursky and Volker Heinze they belong to the pioneers of contemporary German colour photography.
Knut Wolfgang Maron’s early colour photographs from 1979 were exhibited by Prof. Ute Eskildsen at Museum Folkwang in 1981. Gosbert Adler received the first scholarship for contemporary German photography from the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation in 1982. The works created during Adler’s scholarship were exhibited by Ute Eskildsen alongside those of other Krupp grant recipients at Museum Folkwang in 1984. In 1989, Adler was the first photographer to receive the "Erster Deutscher Fotopreis" Stuttgart for colour photography. Among many other grants and awards, Maron received the Leopold Godowsky Jr. Color Photography Award from the Photographic Resource Center, Boston, in 1993.
Gosbert Adler’s works are represented in numerous public collections, such as:
The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum Folkwang, Essen; Sprengel Museum Hanover; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin; Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; Sammlung des Siemens Kulturprogramms; Ruhrlandmuseum, Essen; Sammlung des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz; Stichting Werner Mantz, The Netherlands.
Knut Wolfgang Maron’s works are represented in numerous public collections, such as: Museum Folkwang, Essen; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; Musée Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.
Parallel to this exhibition, Knut Wolfgang Maron’s exhibition "Ein Leben" (One Life) is on view at Kunsthalle Erfurt from 2 September to 4 November 2012, for which Volker Heinze has conceived and designed a catalogue with essays by Dr. Dirk Blübaum, Dr. Gerhard Graulich, Prof. Dr. Laurent Jouannaud, Dr. Andreas Steffens, Juan Puntes and Knut Wolfgang Maron.
The exhibition is being held in conjunction with the European Month of Photography, Berlin
Image: Gosbert Adler
Opening Reception, Fri. 14. September, 8.00 p.m.
Extra opening during BERLIN ART WEEK: saturday 15 september 11am-6pm
Galerie zone B
Brunnenstr. 149, 10115 Berlin
Hours: Tues-Thurs 9am - 4pm and by appointment