24 Jun 2014

Surfaces at Fotomuseum Winterthur

SURFACES – NEW PHOTOGRAPHY FROM SWITZERLAND

08.03.2014 - 24.08.2014

One element of contemporary photography is a concern for surfaces and the investigation of their supposed smoothness and impenetrability. Swiss photography classes at the Zurich University of the Arts, the ECAL in Lausanne, and HEAD in Geneva have trained a number of artists who, in addition to exploring questions of content, have primarily addressed issues specific to the medium. Have new developments in photography been made due to the digital turn? How is our relationship to the tangible exhibition object changing, when photographs are no longer shown in photo albums but as files on screens? What happens in terms of perspective, when a continuous number of new applications and platforms allow the private to become public and the public to become private? Are surfaces the true content of our time? And from the standpoint of art, what kinds of conclusions can be drawn for the current and future production of works of photography? Including purchases and gifts to the collection of the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Surfaces – New Photography from Switzerland demonstrates how works in collections are updated and transformed in close collaboration with artists, even after entering the museum context. These fluid forms of a work allow it to exist in multiples states and gives rise to new discursive interpretations.

Curator: Thomas Seelig

With works by Beni Bischof, Stefan Burger, collectif_fact, Cédric Eisenring/Thomas Julier, Matthias Gabi, Thomas Galler, Dominik Hodel, Dominique Koch, A.C. Kupper, Adrien Missika, Nils Nova, Taiyo Onorato/Nico Krebs, Shirana Shahbazi, Jules Spinatsch and Herbert Weber.

We would like to thank the main sponsor of the exhibition: the George Foundation and for further support the Ernst Göhner Stiftung and Ringier AG.