Photography from the KWS Collection

Man and woman, snake and leaf, a stork. A close-up of a birdwing and a free bird in flight. Human and animal, naked skin and fur, a veil. Lonesome, twosome, identity constructions and personal placings in time and space. The home, the European battlefield, and the monumental world of mountains. Ephemeral flowers and skulls, coaldust.

The works selected from the collection for the presentation “Your Life” inspire diverse and profound associations. Birth, love, freedom, and personal responsibility, beauty, mortality, death, and eternity – what is life all about, what is the meaning? Where do we come from, where are we going? What is truly important? What defines our identity, where do we place our personalities? Are we hunters or prey? The list of questions this exhibition raises could be extended – not without irony and hope, the selection of about twenty artistic black-and-white and colour photographs approaches existential issues with visual means and offers room for thought.

The analogue and digital, partly post-processed and collaged photographs represent a wide spectrum ranging from black-and-white to colour, close-up to wide-angle, documentation to concept and presentation, authenticity to artificiality.

For the second time, an exhibition in the Cabinet of the Museum Franz Gertsch is providing an insight into the collection of the Keller-Wedekind Foundation (KWS). Founded in 1994, the Keller-Wedekind Foundation makes annual purchases for the KWS collection and awards the KWS Art Prize every two years. The collection currently comprises over 300 works from the fields of painting, works on paper, printed graphics, photography, video, and sculpture. Dating from the 1980s to the present, the artworks mainly represent landscapes, figures, cityscapes, architecture, interiors, and still lifes.

The exhibition was curated by Anna Wesle.

To know more about the Keller-Wedekind Foundation