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031212: Galerie Steinek Matthias Hermann – 270 West 17th Street 20c NY NY 10011
Galerie Steinek
Matthias Hermann – 270 West 17th Street 20c
NY NY 10011
14.11.2012 – 20.12.2012
Memorial during his lifetime
By Nina Schedlmayer
It seems odd, someone said the other day, that we always admire early 21st century toddlers for their technological competence. After all, they grew up with an iPad and an iPhone, no wonder that 3 year-olds swipe across the TV instead of searching for a button. A telephone with a rotary dial is exotic in the eyes of a child born 2010. The same goes for cameras. Dark room? Films? Developer? Colour filters? One day all of this will be completely unknown to our children.
Analogue photography is increasingly replaced by digital photography – large companies were forced to close down or give up parts of their business. In his recent still lifes, Matthias Hermann created a memorial to honour this disappearing technology: similar to classical product photography he stages analogue photographic tools. Positioned on a light-table they seem withdrawn from reality, as if they were in another world. Polaroid paper, photo boxes, instructions for a second-hand camera, and lenses turn into sculptural functionless objects. The colour filters balancing for a few seconds on the surface without any support are remarkably beautiful and evocative.
As portentous these icons may appear, as casual are the photographs that Hermann made during his stay in New York in the last months: golden ballerina shoes, cheap perfume bottles in a shop window, busts in a museum, a yellow sea of school busses – or, in larger formats: a house with nailed-up windows, a pond with gold fish. Despite their superficial banality these works are characterized by a certain melancholy, and they also appear to want to hold on to a drowning world.
Galerie Steinek
1010 Vienna, Eschenbachgasse 4
Tel: +431/512 87 59
Fax: +431/512 87 59
email: galerie@steinek.at
http://www.galerie.steinek.at
Opening hours: Tue – Fri: 13:00 - 18:00 hours; Sat: 11:00 - 15:00 hours
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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031212
Galerie Steinek
1010 Wien, Eschenbachgasse 4
Tel: +431/512 87 59, Fax: +431/512 87 59
Email: galerie@steinek.at
http://www.galerie.steinek.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr: 13-18h
Sa: 11-15h
Galerie Steinek
1010 Wien, Eschenbachgasse 4
Tel: +431/512 87 59, Fax: +431/512 87 59
Email: galerie@steinek.at
http://www.galerie.steinek.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr: 13-18h
Sa: 11-15h
