The Secret of Photography – Part II

Landscape & Still Life

May 1 to July 4, 2004
at the Old Town Hall
in Ingelheim am Rhein

The dialogic principle, which created exciting conversations across times and styles in the portraits of the first photography exhibition in 2003, was continued in this second exhibition. Around 100 photographs by great masters from the pioneering days of photography between 1850 and 1914, flanked by 20 large-format works of contemporary photographic art, resulted in an unusual dialogue between two generations separated by a century.

Something connects them, however: an aesthetically tuned perception of nature and landscape, paired with a sensitive sense for painterly values in visual composition, as well as a masterful handling of photo-technical possibilities, from which they demand everything imaginable and to which they entrust almost everything. The selection and presentation were made possible by generous loans from museums, galleries, and private collections from Germany, Austria, England, France, Switzerland, and the USA.

Press reviews of the exhibition

“Little is known about Charles Jones, who was born in England in 1866, became a gardener, grew fruit and vegetables, and began photographing literally ‘kraut and turnips’ around the turn of the last century. They are enchanting still lifes. (…) For the exhibition in Ingelheim, Jones’s photographs have now become the hinge between two major sections: the romantically transfigured landscapes and still lifes of the late nineteenth century, represented among others by Steichen, Kühn, and Koppitz, and the passionately detached, giant-format color images by contemporary photo artists such as Sasse, Hütte, and Gursky.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)

“The list of artists reads like a Who’s Who of photographic history: what begins with Gustave Le Gray or Edward Steichen in the 19th century continues into the present with Peter Nädas or Andreas Gursky.” (Allgemeine Zeitung)

“The Ingelheim exhibition certainly cannot (and does not intend to) cover all aspects of landscape photography. However, with its calm and clear presentation, it succeeds in showing the diversity of the subject.” (Wiesbadener Kurier)

“Minimalist still lifes and complex stagings of inanimate objects, tamed nature and the reclaimed cultural landscape: such contrasts characterize the exhibition, which features big names from the Fratelli Alinari to Peter Nädas, from Eadweard Muybridge to Andreas Gursky.” (Darmstädter Echo)

“The exhibition is remarkable not only for the quality of its images, but because it allows the visual world of the 19th century to flow directly into that of the 21st century. The line of continuity runs unbroken from Hill/Adamson, Le Gray, and Watkins to Gursky, Hütte, Nieweg, and Sasse from the famous ‘Becher School’.” (Die Welt)