| | | | | | | | Hans Eijkelboom: A shower of rain, 1971
© Hans Eijkelboom | | | | | | Photographic Concepts from the Seventies until Today | | | | | | Framework Houses in Siegen’s Industrial Region | | | | 4 November, 2016 – 19 March, 2017 | | | | Opening: Thursday, 3 November, 7 p.m. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | Hans Eijkelboom: Photo Notes, Paris, 21/10/2006
© Hans Eijkelboom | | | | | | Photographic Concepts from the Seventies until Today | | | | 4 November, 2016 – 19 March, 2017 | | | The oeuvre of the Dutch artist Hans Eijkelboom (*1949), in particular his early work, is associated with Conceptual Art, which was very palpable in the 1970s and the subject of discussion worldwide. A crucial experience for the young artist was his participation in the exhibition Sonsbeek Buiten de Perken in Arnhem in 1971. Well-known personalities such as Carl Andre, Robert Smithson, Douglas Huebler, and Ed Ruscha were among those selected positions under whose influence Eijkelboom began his creative work.
In the 1970s he began developing multifaceted projects that include the photographic image as well as written details framed by the artist. They deal with the development and existence of ideal and conceptual images, with (photographic) clichés and biases, with processes of type formation, with categorization and comparison as methods of structuring. People play a primary role in his photographic series, which are often produced within a timeframe defined by the artist. Eijkelboom prefers to observe individuals in their social and spatial surroundings; he initiates interaction, calls for concentrated perception, and in doing so does not exclude himself as a person. | | | | | | | | | Hans Eijkelboom: With my family, 1973
© Hans Eijkelboom | | | | | | | Key works by the artist are the photographic journals he began keeping in 1979. He initially sought to render the process of taking pictures anonymous. In connection with this, since 1992—again operating the camera in a discreet way—he has been producing his "Fotonotities" ("Photo Notes"). These are done in the shopping streets of our major cities, where he takes photographs for between 20 minutes and 4 hours. He primarily takes snapshot-like pictures of passers-by—of their outfits, their gestures, their bearing—originally in Arnhem, Amsterdam, and other Dutch cities, for which he lays down new criteria every day. He gradually incorporated 40 international cities into his long-term photographic study. Eijkelboom’s shutter release reacts to what we take for granted: business suits, Hawaiian shirts, striped shirts or shirts with numbers printed on them, pants with a floral pattern or quilted winter jackets. He has thus created an extensive pool of countless photographs that he presents according to motif, day, and year—a unique "street atlas." | | | | | | | | | Hans Eijkelboom: Photo Notes, Amsterdam, 3/8/2013
© Hans Eijkelboom | | | | | | | It was not until 2014 that Hans Eijkelboom published his "Photo Notes" under the title People of the Twenty-First Century and in doing so not only pays tribute to the encyclopedically arranged oeuvre of portrait and social photography by August Sander, but also to his achievements as a forerunner of Conceptual Art. | | | | | | | | | | Hans Eijkelboom: The 3 communists, 1975 © Hans Eijkelboom | | | | | | | In conjunction with the Hans Eijkelboom exhibition, Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur is also publishing an artist’s catalogue (Dutch, German, English) that includes texts by the artist and by Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, Hans den Hartog Jager, Dieter Roelstraete, and Gerrit Willems (Snoeck Verlag). | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | Bernd und Hilla Becher: Framework Houses in Siegen’s Industrial Region, 1958-1974
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher
courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln & Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen | | | | | | Framework Houses in Siegen’s Industrial Region | | | | 4 November, 2016 – 19 March, 2017 | | | Bernd and Hilla Becher (1931–2007, 1934–2015) began taking photographs of framework houses in Siegen’s industrial region early on in their artistic career. Produced between 1958 and 1974, this body of work proved the value of the consistent depiction of a type of object in so-called typologies. Analysis and synthesis were not to be accomplished solely in a precise individual image but in the quasi-scientific grouping of the photographs as well.
Bernd and Hilla Becher published their first book on the subject in 1977, which would be followed by further monographically arranged books on individual industrial building types. In the book on framework houses one learns that this typical form of post construction (Ständerfachwerk) had begun developing in the late nineteenth century in the Siegerland, one of the oldest ore mining regions. Plain and assembled out of individual prefabricated elements, this is a markedly economical, rationalized construction method. For the Bechers, this form of building houses reflected the industrial design principle of “form follows function” in an individual way. | | | | | | | | | Bernd und Hilla Becher: Obere Dorfstraße 21, Bürbach, 1962
Framework Houses in Siegen’s Industrial Region, 1958-1974
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher
courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln & Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen | | | | | | The homes inspired the artist couple to create uniquely clear views that they converted into a new visual aesthetic and grammar. At the same time, they documented Siegen’s industrial and cultural history. Their framework house typologies were exhibited at documenta 11 in 2002. They were furthermore presented in Siegen several times and in Cologne as early as 2006, during the lifetime of Bernd and Hilla Becher. The works are now being shown again based on their installation concept.
In 2004 the Kunststiftung NRW sponsored the purchase of 15 typologies by Bernd and Hilla Becher on the subject of the framework houses in Siegen’s industrial region, thereby securing the body of work for the shared collection of the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen and Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur. Thus it is now linked with further important works by Bernd and Hilla Becher in Cologne. | | | | | | unsubscribe here
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