Thursday 8

Still



"With the surrealism of the 1920s and 1930s, the world of things metamorphosed into a mystical universe. Most notably, the objects exude an aura of ambiguity. They reveal their hidden beauty, frequently erotically charged. Josef Breitenbach depicts the New Yorker's dynamic attitude towards life in a magical composition: high rise buildings illuminated at night, in conjunction with a human circulatory system from a medical textbook. In his fotografia metafisica, Herbert List investigates the mysterious marriages of randomly generated constellations. Man Ray's rayographies explore the expressive potential of photography without a camera. "

Dietmar Siegert is a fiml director and pruducer in Munich and he has collected photos from the 19th and 20th century. These found images have now become whats known as " The Life of Things". It is a collection of 150 pictures from the Idea of Still Life in Photography 1840-1985.
This Exhibit will be going on through Feburary 1st 2009. This collection is one of the most private and significant collections of this medium in the world. Its purpose is to provide insight into the concept of still life in photography. The subjects of these pictures vary from flowers and foods to " special finds" which are more abstract. The 20th century exhibit is a basic overview of the expansion of the traditional still life. " A Focal point is the broad selection of French and Czech surrealist works such as Emilia Medkova and Jan Svoboda." Other artists whose still lifes are being presented include Erwin Blumenfeld, Lewis Hine, Anton Stankowski and Hans Finsler. This exhibit covers still lifes from the past 100 years and its focus is "on depicting the world of inanimate objects that assume lives of their own beyond their utilitarian value."

My portfolio contains work in the still life genre and this article was perfect for me to find. The focus of my photography is very similar to the focus of this exhibit. One hundred years ago, still lifes had no purpose in the commercial world. Today, we have magazines devoted to these topics and I'm thankful that advertising continues to flourish.