Anna and Bernhard Blume

Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin

Pure reason. In their frequently multipart, large format, black and white photoseries, this artistic couple stages temporal sequences within which they themselves act as protagonists. The scenes are often reduced, estranged, and above all odd: order and chaos seem to mutually condition one another, role - playing and convention inhere in each object, conditioning modes of behavior and provoking resistance.

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Artists Anna and Bernhard Blume, born in 1937, have significantly extended the genre of the staged photograph, and they number among its most renowned exponents internationally. In their frequently multipart, large format, black–and–white photoseries, this artistic couple stages temporal sequences within which they themselves act as protagonists. The scenes are often reduced, estranged, and above all odd: order and chaos seem to mutually condition one another, role–playing and convention inhere in each object, conditioning modes of behavior and provoking resistance. With their diagnoses of the contemporary condition, the works of Anna and Bernhard Blume always interweave performance, painting, and photography.

Deformation and metaphor, subjective perception and collective conventions are thematized, thereby touching on the question of whether the boundaries of the visible also determine those of experience. The exhibition “Reine Vernunft” (Pure Reason), their first comprehensive appearance in Berlin, provides an overview of the ironical and philosophical strategy employed by this artistic team, which critically opposes the elevation of the artist as representative of a petit–bourgeois milieu. On display, among others, is the early work “Ödipale Komplikationen” (Oedipal Complications; 1977/78), as well as “Küchenkoller” (Kitchen Frenzy; 1985) and “Abstrakte Kunst” (Abstract Art; 2002-2004). In the context of their intensive dedication to a continuous process of self–experimentation, Anna and Bernhard Blume have performed groundwork on the nature of German existence. Their thesis is as simple as it is astonishing: Before going out into the big, wide, world, one ought to thoroughly investigate “home sweet home” to see whether every conceivable form of misery is not present there already.

Sponsored by the German Capital Cultural Fund.
With generous support from Sander Imaging GmbH.

Hamburger Bahnhof
Invalidenstrasse 50-51- Berlin

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