Anna & Bernhard Blume
24 Jan - 08 Mar 2014
ANNA & BERNHARD BLUME
Im Wald
24 January – 8 March 2014
The Buchmann Gallery is delighted to announce a solo show with works by Anna & Bernhard Blume.
The large-format photo sequence shows works from the series Im Wald (In the Forest), which was created between 1982 and 1991 and which until now has only rarely been shown as a complete sequence. Im Wald is considered one of the couple’s central works and it occupies a special position in their oeuvre, as it was the first and only time that the artists moved the locus to an outside setting. Thematically, the sequence is closely linked to several of their other photo sequences, as it also focuses on the ironic depiction of habits and rituals.
The bourgeois couple enjoying a Sunday walk – she is wearing a dress with a floral pattern, he has on a checked jacket – are portrayed by the artists themselves. In a relaxed Sunday mood they look down from a Black Forest slope and do not seem to realise that the picture of nature in their minds no longer matches the reality around them. Instead of pristine woodlands, they are standing in a patch of forest surrounded by trees stripped of their leaves by the acid rain. “On a symbolic level, the forest pictures can be read as the collapse of our idealising concept of nature” (Bazon Brock, in: Anna & Bernhard Blume. Fotoarbeiten und Großfotoserien, Volume III, p 157. Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, 1995).
In later works in this series, the Blumes interact with trees in a similar way to their interaction with objects in other sequences. They hang from the branches, wedge themselves between the trunks or hug the trees in an ecstatic embrace. This “renaturation ecstasy” (B. Blume) humorously and ironically depicts the desire to become one with nature.
The Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin is currently showing installations and photos by Anna & Bernhard Blume that were recently acquired for the collection. Additionally, the show lens-based sculpture at the Akademie der Künste Berlin includes large-format photos by Anna & Bernhard Blume.
Im Wald
24 January – 8 March 2014
The Buchmann Gallery is delighted to announce a solo show with works by Anna & Bernhard Blume.
The large-format photo sequence shows works from the series Im Wald (In the Forest), which was created between 1982 and 1991 and which until now has only rarely been shown as a complete sequence. Im Wald is considered one of the couple’s central works and it occupies a special position in their oeuvre, as it was the first and only time that the artists moved the locus to an outside setting. Thematically, the sequence is closely linked to several of their other photo sequences, as it also focuses on the ironic depiction of habits and rituals.
The bourgeois couple enjoying a Sunday walk – she is wearing a dress with a floral pattern, he has on a checked jacket – are portrayed by the artists themselves. In a relaxed Sunday mood they look down from a Black Forest slope and do not seem to realise that the picture of nature in their minds no longer matches the reality around them. Instead of pristine woodlands, they are standing in a patch of forest surrounded by trees stripped of their leaves by the acid rain. “On a symbolic level, the forest pictures can be read as the collapse of our idealising concept of nature” (Bazon Brock, in: Anna & Bernhard Blume. Fotoarbeiten und Großfotoserien, Volume III, p 157. Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, 1995).
In later works in this series, the Blumes interact with trees in a similar way to their interaction with objects in other sequences. They hang from the branches, wedge themselves between the trunks or hug the trees in an ecstatic embrace. This “renaturation ecstasy” (B. Blume) humorously and ironically depicts the desire to become one with nature.
The Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin is currently showing installations and photos by Anna & Bernhard Blume that were recently acquired for the collection. Additionally, the show lens-based sculpture at the Akademie der Künste Berlin includes large-format photos by Anna & Bernhard Blume.