Mapplethorpe · Poppies

Robert Mapplethorpe ~ Poppy, 1988 © R. Mapplethorpe Foundation | src Fragile Beauty exhibition at V&A museum
Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) ~ Poppy, 1988. Dye transfer print | src flickr
Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) ~ Poppy, 1988; toned photogravure; 1988, signed, dated and numbered | src 1st dibs
Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) ~ Poppy, 1988. Dye transfer print | src mutualart

Max Baur · Lily of the Valley

Max Baur (1898-1988) ~ Lily of the Valley in vase, 1930s. Hand-colored vintage gelatin silver print | src Bassenge
Max Baur (1898-1988) ~ Lily of the Valley, 1930s. Gelatin silver print | src mutualart
Max Baur (1898-1988) ~ Märzbecher / Märzenbecher in Vase, 1930s | src Beck & Eggeling ~ A bouquet of flowers: transient beauty

Rhododendron flowers in vase

Fratelli Alinari ~ Rhododendron Veitchii [Susana Stephens garden]. Florence, ca. 1860. Albumen print | src Ader
Fratelli Alinari ~ Rhododendron Veitchii, ca. 1860. Albumen print [DETAIL]
Fratelli Alinari ~ Rhododendron Veitchii, ca. 1860. Albumen print [DETAIL-2]

Blumenvasen um 1920

Anonym ~ o.T. (Blumenvase), 1920er Jahre | src Der Blumenstrauß: Die Vergängliche Pracht ~ Beck & Eggeling
Anonym ~ o.T. (Blumenvase) (Dahlien), 1920er Jahre | src A bouquet of flowers: Transient beauty ~ Beck & Eggeling

Der Blumenstrauß. Die vergängliche Pracht
Fotografie von den Anfängen bis heute

17. Mai bis 29. Juni 2024

anlässlich der düsseldorf photo+ Biennale for Visual and Sonic Media

Mit Nobuyoshi Araki, Max Baur, Boris Becker, Ute Behrend, Viktoria Binschtok, Peter Bömmels, Tim Berresheim, Natalie Czech, Michael Dannenmann, Sam Evans, Jan Paul Evers, Jitka Hanzlová, Axel Hütte, Leiko Ikemura, Benjamin Katz, Annette Kelm, Karin Kneffel, Maximilian Koppernock, August Kotzsch, Heinrich Kühn, Kathrin Linkersdorff, Robert Mapplethorpe, Hartmut Neumann, Roland Schappert, Luzia Simons, Josef Sudek, Michael Wesely, Dr. Wolff+Tritschler und einigen anonymen alten Fotoarbeiten.

Der Blumenstrauß als künstlerische Installation, die der Fotografie vorausgeht, steht im Fokus dieser Gruppenausstellung.

Als klassisches Thema des Stilllebens hat der Blumenstrauß seinen Reiz bis in die Gegenwart nicht verloren. Die arrangierten Fotos von Blumensträußen Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts sind als Vorläufer der inszenierten Fotografie zu verstehen.
Mit diversen fotografischen Positionen wird der Bogen von historischer Fotografie, beispielsweise von Heinrich Kühn, bis hin zu computerbasierter Fotografie von Tim Berresheim gespannt. Anhand dieses Bildsujets wird auch die Veränderung der technischen und inhaltlichen Möglichkeiten von Fotografie aufgezeigt.

Die zeitgenössische „Blumenstraußfotografie“ geht weit über die Natur- oder Dokumentarfotografie hinaus. So haben die Fotokünstler in unterschiedlicher Ausprägung die skulpturale, malerische und konzeptuelle Möglichkeit dieses Stilllebens ausgelotet und hinterfragt.

Seit Beginn des 17. Jahrhunderts ist der Blumenstrauß in der Malerei als Stilleben in all seiner arrangierten Pracht gegenwärtig und oft sinnbildlich für die Vergänglichkeit allen Seins dargestellt. Die Fotografie hat die Möglichkeit, den Prozess des Vergänglichen zu begleiten, und oft sind es die bereits verwelkten Blumen, die einen besonderen Reiz in der Wirklichkeitswahrnehmung ausmachen. Nichts zeigt die Wirklichkeit frappierender als die Vergänglichkeit.

quoted from Der Blumenstrauß: Die Vergängliche Pracht ~ Beck & Eggeling

A Bouquet of Flowers. Transient Beauty
Photography from the beginnings to the present day

17th May until 29th June 2024

on the occasion of düsseldorf photo+ Biennale for Visual and Sonic Media

With Nobuyoshi Araki, Max Baur, Boris Becker, Ute Behrend, Viktoria Binschtok, Peter Bömmels, Tim Berresheim, Natalie Czech, Michael Dannenmann, Sam Evans, Jan Paul Evers, Jitka Hanzlová, Axel Hütte, Leiko Ikemura, Benjamin Katz, Annette Kelm, Karin Kneffel, Maximilian Koppernock, August Kotzsch, Heinrich Kühn, Kathrin Linkersdorff, Robert Mapplethorpe, Hartmut Neumann, Roland Schappert, Luzia Simons, Josef Sudek, Michael Wesely, Dr. Wolff+Tritschler and a selection of anonymous historical photographs.

The bouquet of flowers as an artistic installation that precedes photography is the focus of this group exhibition.

As a classic still life subject, the bouquet of flowers has not lost its appeal to the present day. The arranged photographs of bouquets of flowers in the mid-19th century are to be understood as precursors of staged photography.

With various photographic positions, the exhibition ranges from historical photography, for example by Heinrich Kühn, to computer-based photography by Tim Berresheim. This pictorial subject is also used to demonstrate the changes in the technical and content-related possibilities of photography.

Contemporary “bouquet photography” goes far beyond nature or documentary photography. Photographic artists have explored and scrutinized the sculptural, painterly and conceptual possibilities of this still life to varying degrees.

Since the beginning of the 17th century, the bouquet of flowers has been present in painting as a still life in all its arranged splendour, often symbolizing the transience of all existence. Photography has the opportunity to accompany the process of transience, and it is often the flowers that have already withered that create a special charm in the perception of reality. Nothing shows reality more strikingly than transience.

Visual dialogue · Lilies

Italo Bertoglio ~ Lilium, anni 1930. Stampa vintage alla gelatina ai sali d’argento | src Finarte ~ Asta Fotografia
Wilhelm Weimar (1857–1917) ~ Lilie, 1898. Platindruck | src MK&G ~ Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Wilhelm Weimar (1857–1917) ~ Lilies, 1898. Collodium print | src MK&G ~ Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

Flower photograms by Nell Dorr

Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers view two], ca. 1940-1954. Photogram | src Amon Carter Museum
Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers], ca. 1940-1954. Photogram. [Mother and Child 7] | src Amon Carter Museum
Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers view five], ca. 1940-1954. Photogram. [Mother and Child 66] | src Amon Carter Museum
Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers view seven], ca. 1940-1954. Photogram. [Mother and Child 83] | src Amon Carter Museum
Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers view four], ca. 1940-1954 [Mother and Child 41] | src Amon Carter Museum
Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers view four], ca. 1940-1954 [Mother and Child 41] | src Amon Carter Museum P1990.45.66
Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers view three], ca. 1940-1954. Photogram. [Mother and Child 35] | src Amon Carter Museum
Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers], ca. 1940-1954. Photogram | src Amon Carter Museum P1990.45.215
Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers view nine], ca. 1940-1954. Photogram | src Amon Carter Museum
Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers view eight], ca. 1940-1954. Photogram. [Mother and Child 84] | src Amon Carter Museum
Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers view twenty-one], ca. 1940-1954. Photogram. Endpaper; right hand page
Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers view fifteen], ca. 1940-1954. Photogram | src Amon Carter Museum
Nell Dorr (1893-1988) ~ [Wildflowers view six], ca. 1940-1954. Photogram. [Mother and Child 48-82] | src Amon Carter Museum

He Brings Me Roses

Barbara Crane (1928-2019) ~ He Brings Me Roses: Bouquet #3 view #1, 2011. Photogram | src Amon Carter Museum
Barbara Crane (1928-2019) ~ He Brings Me Roses: Bouquet #4 view #1, 2011. Photogram | src Amon Carter Museum

Louise Bourgeois · Gouaches

Louise Bourgeois (1911 – 2010) ~ The Ticking of the Clock: The Heartbeat, 2008. Gouache and colored pencil on paper, suite of 12 | src Hauser & Wirth
Louise Bourgeois (1911 – 2010) ~ Les Fleurs, 2009. Gouache on paper, suite of 18 | src Hauser & Wirth

‘Louise Bourgeois. My Own Voice Wakes Me Up’

First solo exhibition in Hong Kong of works by renowned French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911 – 2010). The exhibition is curated by Jerry Gorovoy, who worked closely with Bourgeois from the early 1980s until her death in 2010.

For more than 70 years, Bourgeois created forms that merged the concrete reality of the world around her and the fantastic reality of her inner psychic landscape. Her creative process was rooted in an existential need to record the rhythms and fluctuations of her conscious and unconscious life as a way of imposing order on the chaos of her emotions. The body, with its functions and distempers, held the key to both self-knowledge and cathartic release. ‘My Own Voice Wakes Me Up’ takes its title from one of Bourgeois’s ‘psychoanalytic writings,’ dated December 1951 and written at the very beginning of her intensive analysis. In this text, she describes how her own voice awakes her from a dream in which she was calling out (‘maman, maman’) while pounding on her husband’s chest. The exhibition focuses on distinct bodies of work from the final two decades of the artist’s life, including fabric sculptures, hand poses, late works on paper, topiary sculptures, and rarely exhibited holograms. | text Hauser & Wirth