Exhibition: ‘Annelies Štrba – “My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds”‘ at Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich

Exhibition dates: 25th February – 13th August 2023

Curator: Teresa Gruber at Fotostiftung Schweiz

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'In the children's room' 1978

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
In the children’s room
1978
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

 

A short text this week because I’m suffering from sinusitis and headache.

Annelies Štrba’s “intimate family scenes… breaking away from the rules of perfect photographic reproduction” are the antithesis – or anti-thesis – of last weeks posting were the curators conceptualised 1930s American documentary photography as a sort of reality-dream.

Here there is no need to conceptualise such a response to the photographs for Štrba’s unconventional, poetic photographs really are a mixture of dream and reality. At the limits of visibility Štrba’s glances, glimpses, clefts, over / under exposures, double exposures, colour disfigurations and ingressions – the process by which a potentiality enters into actuality – offer to the viewer a “no place” of becoming, where “recognition” is the trigger of exposure.

Like the sudden gust of wind drops the ripe apple. (Minor White)

It is difficult in a posting to leave an “impression” of an artists body of work in so few photographs, especially an artist who works in series of images. Therefore, I heartily recommend viewing the familial architectural Shades of Time series (1970-1997) on Annelies Štrba’s website.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to Fotostiftung Schweiz for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

The exhibition Annelies Štrba – “My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds” focuses on Annelies Štrba’s early works. Black-and-white photo canvases, colour photographs and the projection Shades of Time show images from the years 1974 to 1997. These works are framed by her later expressionist video stills, a newly conceived projection with photographs from the years up to 2015 and staged scenes of fairy-tale princesses sleeping in enchanted landscapes. All the pictures revolve around the theme of family. Their juxtaposition enables an understanding of how this artist’s personal and artistic development over time is reflected in her view of children and grandchildren.⁠

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Drying cherries' 1979

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Drying cherries
1979
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Linda with Teddybear' 1981

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Linda with Teddybear
1981
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Linda Vision' 1980

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Linda Vision
1980
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

 

An­nelies Štrba (b. 1947) is an ob­server and ma­gi­cian: She cap­tures fleet­ing mo­ments and cre­ates dream im­ages; life and art in­ter­twine. When her chil­dren were small, the cam­era was part of every­day fam­ily life; at night, the mother would de­velop her prints in the dark­room. Again and again, she adopted new tech­niques and forms of pre­sen­ta­tion, for in­stance when she began work­ing with video in the 1990s and when she even­tu­ally started to paint over pho­tographs printed on can­vas. While her ear­lier ana­logue works play with snap­shot aes­thet­ics, her video stills and edited dig­i­tal pho­tographs achieve the in­ten­sity of ex­pres­sion­ist paint­ings.

The Fo­to­s­tiftung Schweiz col­lec­tion con­tains a big group of Štrba’s early black-and-white photo can­vases and colour pho­tographs – in­ti­mate fam­ily scenes, but also bleak fa­cades of large-panel-sys­tem build­ings and high-rises.

This ret­ro­spec­tive ex­hi­bi­tion, whose title quotes a poem by Emmy Hen­nings, pre­sents these works for the first time. They are po­si­tioned around two newly conceived pro­jec­tions of the work cy­cles with which An­nelies Štrba trans­lated her view of the fam­ily into im­ages: Shades of Time brings to­gether pho­tographs taken be­tween 1974 and 1997, show­ing the chil­dren Sonja, Samuel and Linda as they grow up. Noon­day is ded­i­cated to her chil­dren’s chil­dren. When these se­ries are seen to­gether, the in­ter­weav­ing of eras be­comes tan­gi­ble. The vi­sual worlds, char­ac­terised by sub­jec­tiv­ity and in­tu­ition, merge to form one com­pre­hen­sive cos­mos.

Text from the Fotostiftung Schweiz website

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Zeitz' 1983

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Zeitz
1983
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Annelies Štrba – "My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds"' at the Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich

 

Installation view of the exhibition Annelies Štrba – “My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds” at the Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich

 

 

Annelies Štrba (b. 1947) is one of Switzerland’s most internationally renowned contemporary artists using photography. In her works, she captures fleeting moments and creates dream images; life and art intertwine. This exhibition at Fotostiftung Schweiz presents, for the first time, large-format photo canvases from the collection and a projection specially conceived for Fotostiftung Schweiz.

The exhibition Annelies Štrba – “My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds” focuses on Annelies Štrba’s early works. Black-and-white photo canvases, colour photographs and the projection Shades of Time show images from the years 1974 to 1997. These works are framed by her later expressionist video stills, a newly conceived projection with photographs from the years up to 2015 and staged scenes of fairy-tale princesses sleeping in enchanted landscapes. All the pictures revolve around the theme of family. Their juxtaposition enables an understanding of how this artist’s personal and artistic development over time is reflected in her view of children and grandchildren.

 

From the attic to Kunsthalle Zurich

Despite her photographic apprenticeship, which she commenced at the age of 16, Annelies Štrba is a self-taught artist, as she never attended an art school. In 1969, she married Bernhard Schobinger, whom she accompanied and assisted in his work as a goldsmith and artist. Štrba came into contact with the art scene in her husband’s gallery for contemporary art, which he opened in Richterswil, where the pair lived. Mostly though, she took care of their three children: Sonja, Samuel and Linda. With the little ones in tow, she sold selected clothes and shoes for the punk and new wave scene at the Bürkliplatz flea market in Zurich to support their modest household. Meanwhile, without any ambition at first, she documented family life with her camera, developing her prints at night in the attic and storing them in boxes.

It was in Bernhard Schobinger’s 1987 publication Devon-Karbon-Perm that Štrba’s photographs first attracted attention. Her presentation of Schobinger’s jewellery in photographs that look raw and unmediated, and reproductions of handmade prints with scratches and streaks, bear witness to a confident photographic language, vehemently rejecting any smoothness, perfection or conformity. However, it was not until 1990, at the age of 43, that Annelies Štrba first appeared as an artist in her own right. Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, who was Kunsthalle Zurich’s curator at the time, offered her an exhibition. Against all expectations and advice (from the men involved), Annelies Štrba decided to enlarge her intimate sketchy pictures on photo canvases, in formats of up to 100 by 150 centimetres. From the very start, she emphasised the difference between a mother’s snapshots hoarded in a photo album and the visual works that were now revealed to the public. The formats and the rough unprotected surface of the canvases gave the photographs the presence of paintings. Štrba abstracted and thereby intensified the peculiar mood of the everyday scenes. She superimposed a heaviness, a seriousness, on the photographs of the children playing, sleeping or sitting together in the kitchen, which turned them into symbolic images of the human condition: loneliness in togetherness, eeriness in the familiar, the depths of the family.

 

Shades of Time: changes in the visual language

As the children grew older and the artist became more successful, her radius of movement increased: In the 1990s, Annelies Štrba received a studio scholarship from Landis+Gyr. She travelled to England, Scotland, Ireland and Japan, and exhibited in Berlin, London, New York, Paris and Tokyo. In 1997, Lars Müller Publishers released her extensive monograph Shades of Time (which has long since been out of print). In this book’s series of images, a change can be seen in her visual language and attitude to life over the years: landscapes passing by the car window, house facades, gardens, but above all Sonja and Linda as young women continuing the game with the camera, on equal footing, and obviously enjoying it. The birth of the first grandchild, Samuel-Maria, brings a Madonna-like depiction of maternal love and care into Štrba’s visual cosmos – a motif that had been absent until then, not least because the mother had remained hidden behind the camera.

 

First video works and video stills

Also in 1997, Štrba produced her first video, because a filmed portrait of the artist was required for the Whitechapel Gallery in London and she did not want to leave the making of it to anyone else. Enthused by the possibilities for manipulation offered by this technique, which was new to her, she put the still camera aside and concentrated on video works, in addition to video stills produced as stand-alone images. By adjusting or saturating the colours and using visual distortion, she created special aesthetics that looked painterly and technical at the same time. The motifs also liberated themselves more and more radically from the domesticity of the previous years. Landscapes, cityscapes and flowers served as visual composition elements, as did the silhouettes of her adult daughters.

However, still photography and children did come back to dominate Annelies Štrba’s imagery once again. From countless photographs of her grandchildren, especially Linda’s daughter Shereen, a new cycle of works emerged, culminating in the 2015 publication Noonday: Colourful scenes, many of which were taken at the artist’s home in Amden, show a children’s paradise comprising brightly coloured fabrics, cushions, blankets and a trove of princess dresses.

 

“My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds”

The photo canvases that were purchased in 2015 and 2021 with support from the Förderverein Fotostiftung Schweiz, among others, and supplemented by generous donations from the artist, are presented for the first time in this exhibition, whose title quotes a poem by Emmy Hennings, The motifs also appear in a digital interpretation of the Shades of Time slide show, newly conceived in 2020. In addition, Štrba has composed a projection from the Noonday picture series specifically for this exhibition in Winterthur, with a soundtrack produced by her son, Samuel Schobinger. The Shades of Time and Noonday projections run alternately in the exhibition, one after the other, uniting their eras in a never-ending flow of images. The inclusion of selected video stills, mounted behind glass in a large format, also visualises the themes of the artist’s life and her tireless pursuit of image forms for her cosmos.

With the exhibition Annelies Štrba – “My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds”, Fotostiftung Schweiz continues its commitment to honouring female photographers. Like previous presentations of female artists, such as Pia Zanetti and Manon, this show offers a focused retrospective on an oeuvre that shaped the history of photography in Switzerland. The exhibition was curated by Teresa Gruber, curator at Fotostiftung Schweiz.

Press release from the Fotostiftung Schweiz

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Annelies Štrba – "My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds"' at the Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich showing at left, 'Linda' (1991); 'Hiroshima' (1994); and 'Linda and Sonja with Samuel-Maria' (1995)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Annelies Štrba – “My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds” at the Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich showing at left, Linda (1991, below); Hiroshima (1994, below); and Linda and Sonja with Samuel-Maria (1995, below)

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Linda' 1991

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Linda
1991
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Hiroshima' 1994

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Hiroshima
1994
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Linda and Sonja with Samuel-Maria' 1995

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Linda and Sonja with Samuel-Maria
1995
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) From 'Shades of Time' 1970-1997

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
From Shades of Time
1970-1997
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'In the kitchen' 1995

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
In the kitchen
1995
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

 

Annelies Štrba (b. 1947) is a keen observer, but also a magician: She intuitively captures fleeting moments, then transforms them into images that come across as symbolic. Today, she is one of Switzerland’s most internationally renowned artists working with photography. Her first solo exhibition though, in 1990 at Kunsthalle Zurich, was provocative. An unknown at the time, she appeared in public with her intimate family scenes, defying all expectations and breaking away from the rules of perfect photographic reproduction. Shortly afterwards, Annelies Štrba’s works were exhibited in Berlin, London and New York. She has continued to amaze ever since. Always open to new stylistic devices, techniques and modes of presentation, she translates her view of the world into unconventional poetry.

In this exhibition at Fotostiftung Schweiz, her early work comes to the fore: Black-and-white photo canvases, colour photographs and (in a reconceived digital interpretation from 2020) the slide show Shades of Time present images from the 1970s through to 1997. They show Štrba’s children Sonja, Samuel and Linda growing up. There are also indications of an initial shift in the visual language here, towards more movement and a playful handling of motifs, in which the daughters participate as young women. These almost traditional works are framed by the video stills created later. By means of manipulation carried out on the monitor, colours are remixed and stills dissolve into shimmering structures.

Annelies Štrba’s grandchildren then brought her back to photography. With a mobile phone camera and digital photography, she accompanied her heroines and heroes through everyday life, opening up a new colourful cosmos, which she encapsulated under the title Noonday in 2015. From that group of works, Štrba has also composed a projection, specifically for this exhibition in Winterthur. The Shades of Time and Noonday projections run alternately in the exhibition, one after the other, uniting their eras in a never-ending flow of images. Finally, princesses sleeping in fairy-tale landscapes (usually granddaughter Shereen is the performer) whisk the observer away to the land of dreams: The artist had begun to work on the picture surfaces with brush and paint. Štrba made reference to art history and her own images, reproducing, defamiliarising and creating objects, into which the marks of time are, in turn, inscribed.

In 2015 and 2021, Fotostiftung Schweiz was able to purchase a group of Annelies Štrba’s canvases, with support from the society Friends of Fotostiftung Schweiz, among others. These works were supplemented by generous donations from the artist. Representing various phases of her early work, they are now being exhibited together for the first time – and confronted with later works.

 

Biography

Annelies Štrba was born in 1947 in Zug. After training as a photographer and completing her first professional assignments, she married Bernhard Schobinger in 1969, whom she accompanied and assisted in his work as a goldsmith and artist. Štrba came into contact with the art scene in her husband’s gallery for contemporary art, which he opened in Richterswil. Mostly though, she took care of their three children: Sonja, Samuel and Linda. With the little ones in tow, she sold selected clothes and shoes for the punk and new wave scene at the Bürkliplatz flea market in Zurich to support their modest household. Meanwhile, without any ambition at first, she documented family life with her camera, developing her prints at night in the attic and storing them in boxes. It was in Bernhard Schobinger’s 1987 publication Devon-Karbon-Perm that Štrba’s photographs first attracted attention. Her presentation of Schobinger’s jewellery in pictures that look raw and unmediated, and reproductions of handmade prints with scratches and streaks, bear witness to a confident photographic language, vehemently rejecting any smoothness, perfection or conformity. However, it was not until 1990, at the age of 43, that Štrba first appeared as an artist in her own right. Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, who was Kunsthalle Zurich’s curator at the time, offered her an exhibition.

 

Triptych

The first room of the exhibition introduces Annelies Štrba’s various spheres by means of a brightly coloured triptych – a group of three, albeit constituting one female figure. By extracting two stills from a video work and mirroring one of them, the artist has created a ‘community’ and arranged it as a psychedelic altarpiece: Shown frontally and immersed in golden brown, the internally calm queen is bowed to by her brightly dressed servants on the left and right – one in blue, the other in magenta, with glowing contours. Due to the coarse resolution of the video images, the surface and figure disintegrate into pixel-like patches of colour, bringing to mind the structure of paintings. The pictures’ saturated defamiliarised colouring makes reference to expressionist works.

 

Canvases

For her first exhibition, at Kunsthalle Zurich in 1990, Annelies Štrba enlarged her photographs on canvases in formats of up to 100 by 150 centimetres. From the very start, she emphasised the difference between a mother’s snapshots hoarded in a photo album and these visual works that were now revealed to the public. The formats and the rough unprotected surface of the canvases gave the photographs the presence of paintings. At the same time, they came across like washed-out yellowed pictures from a bygone era. Štrba abstracted and thereby intensified the peculiar mood of the everyday scenes. She superimposed a heaviness, a seriousness, on the photographs of the children playing, sleeping or sitting together in the kitchen, which turned them into symbolic images of the human condition: loneliness in togetherness, eeriness in the familiar, the depths of the family.

 

Kitchen pictures

The kitchen was the heart of the Richterswil house in which Annelies Štrba and Bernhard Schobinger raised their three children Sonja, Samuel and Linda together. Here, they did not merely cook and eat, but also received visitors, discussed and pondered. In this room, which looks cramped and humble, cosiness and chaos merge. Years pass, and suddenly adult daughters are sitting at the same table. The video Max, Annelies Štrba’s first video piece, marks a turning point in her oeuvre and shows a bizarre kitchen spectacle. Although all movements are in slow motion, the activeness of Sonja and Linda setting and clearing the table contrasts with the rather passive attitude that they exhibit in many photographs. In flowing dresses, they make preparations, but these do not lead to anything and instead seem to represent an inherently strange ritualistic process. Annelies Štrba produced this video when a filmed portrait of the artist was required for a 1997 exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London and she did not want to leave the making of it to anyone else. Enthused by the possibilities for manipulation offered by the technology, which was new to her, she put the still camera aside and concentrated on video works, in addition to video stills produced as stand-alone images.

 

Shades of Time projection

Also in 1997, Lars Müller Publishers released an extensive monograph that encompassed Annelies Štrba’s photographic oeuvre. Its title, Shades of Time, was provided by a sign on a shop front, photographed from a moving car during a trip to England. Years and impressions pass by in an associative and only roughly chronological sequence. The shots of sleeping and playing children are replaced by house fronts and landscapes. The heaviness of the early domestic scenes dissolves into increasing movement and colourfulness. This shift in photographic language can also be interpreted autobiographically. In 2001, Annelies Štrba conceived a slide show in which the images were projected in groups of three, with a techno audio accompaniment by Peter Ford. The duplication and mirroring of some individual motifs give rise to arrangements that sometimes appear ornamental or even sacral. The digital version of this projection was made in 2020, in collaboration with video company in Zofingen.

 

Noonday projection

While growing up, Annelies Štrba’s grandchildren presented her with a new world of images: a chaotic clarity, a banal colourfulness, in which there is also room for laughter and group photos. Annelies Štrba cleverly combined the children’s joy in dressing up and acting with spontaneous photo shoots. Mostly though, she reacted impartially to life as it happened, proudly taking part in the daily routine and marvelling at it. Štrba herself remains invisible, but her backdrop, her colourfully designed nest, as if made for her little protagonists, frames the action. In 2015, the book Noonday, comprising over three hundred pages, was released by Lars Müller Publishers. In 2023, the artist has collaborated with video company to compose a Noonday projection, adding new motion to the captured moments, with the accompaniment of a soundtrack by her son Samuel Schobinger.

 

Buildings

Already in her first exhibitions, Annelies Štrba placed architectural photographs between the pictures of her children. The bleak facades of residential blocks and high-rise buildings that she photographed on her travels through Silesia contrast with the depictions of cosiness at home. Often, the photographer seems to just glance at these buildings in passing. People also live in most of them, including families. On the other hand, the ruins of Einstürzende Neubauten (collapsing new buildings) captured in the Polish city of Sosnowiec recall Soviet planning and memorialise the Berlin band of the same name, founded in 1980. Štrba’s interest in experimental and electronic music is also incorporated into her video works and projections.

 

Fairy-tale pictures

The motif of sleeping children connects the Shades of Time and Noonday groups of works with NYIMA and Momoka. For the latter, Annelies Štrba edited digital photographs, some of which were taken in the context of Noonday, but also took new photographs: staged scenes, mostly featuring her granddaughter Shereen. All of them show resting girls – in forests, in meadows or on sofas, seemingly immersed in deep sleep. In their princess dresses, they appear to be from another time. Defamiliarisation of colours and superimposition of multiple exposures transform the photographs into visualisations of these dainty figures’ dreams. Aesthetically and compositionally, they resemble the famous painting by the Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais, which depicts the drowned Ophelia lying in a stream, surrounded by plants, flowers and her magnificent gown. The romantic beauty of Štrba’s pictures can also evoke associations with the relationship between sleep and death.

 

Sleeping children

The exhibition’s final room completes the circle and leads back to the beginnings of Annelies Štrba’s photographic oeuvre. While the kitchen has already been examined as an important motif, we now look into the bedroom or children’s room. The artist remembers how, after long evenings in the darkroom, she used to find her children asleep. She would often feel an urge to photograph them like this, cosy in their nests, or surrounded by evidence of play. However, the bed is also a platform on which the state of being awake can be presented: Time and time again, the artist produced portraits of her children sitting on beds.

Text from the exhibition leaflet

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Annelies Štrba – "My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds"' at the Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich showing at right, 'Linda with Shereen' (2000)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Annelies Štrba – “My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds” at the Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich showing at right, Linda with Shereen (2000, below)

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Linda with Shereen' 2000

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Linda with Shereen
2000
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Aya 026' 2002

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Aya 026
2002
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Annelies Štrba – "My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds"' at the Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich showing at left, 'Nyima 410, Nyima 409, Nyima 408' (2009); and on the right a photograph from the series 'Shades of Time' (1970-1997)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Annelies Štrba – “My Otherness Colourfully Unfolds” at the Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich showing at left, Nyima 410, Nyima 409, Nyima 408 (2009, below); and on the right a photograph from the series Shades of Time (1970-1997)

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) From 'Shades of Time' 1970-1997

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
From Shades of Time
1970-1997
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Nyima 408' 2009

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Nyima 408
2009
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

In Tibetan Nima (also spelled as “Nyima”) is also a female or male given name which means ‘the sun’, also the one with radiance of the Sun. And in Hebrew as a female given name it means ‘grace, mercy’.

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Nyima 409' 2009

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Nyima 409
2009
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Nyima 410' 2009

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Nyima 410
2009
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Nyima 438' 2010

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Nyima 438
2010
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Nyima 445' 2010

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Nyima 445
2010
© Annelies Štrba / Pro Litteris

 

 

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Exhibition: ‘Chosen Family – Less Alone Together’ at the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich, Switzerland

Exhibition dates: 11th June – 16th October 2022

 

Richard Billingham (English, b. 1970) 'Untitled' 1990

 

Richard Billingham (English, b. 1970)
Untitled
1990
From the series Ray’s a laugh, 1989-1996
© Richard Billingham

 

 

Blood is thicker than water (or so they say…)

Families – of whatever flavour, construction, empathy, vitriol, love, kindness, dis/affection – are depicted in photographs that shine light on photography’s treatment of the (elective) family and its representation of it as a social and cultural construct.

Today, there are so many alternatives to the “nuclear” family (what an irony that term is, although “nuclear” has links to the word “nucleus” ie, essential, long before the advent of nuclear energy) – that is a couple and their dependent children, regarded as a basic social unit – that it is a joy to celebrate the diversity of “family”, much to the annoyance and distaste of conservative, religious fundamentalists. Family can be anything that we would like to make it!

Personally, I envy those that had a blissful family childhood without the violence and abuse. I really can’t imagine what that would have been like, to have a mother and father that openly expressed love and kindness to their children. I am thankful I had a brother that I was close with, but even that was split asunder, not to be rekindled for many a year. But that upbringing has shaped who I am today. And now I surround myself with my straight and gay family.

As I say, families smamlies!

Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without them.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Family means (chosen) kinship, blood ties and sometimes lifelong bonds – and the perpetual renegotiation of boundaries, regardless of how much fondness and affection are involved. Kinship has at once nothing and everything to do with points of similarity and common ground in day-to-day life and with the ideas we have about everyday realities. We are part of a family – sometimes only on paper and sometimes as a community that is made up of friends who are devoted to one another over the course of their lives. Communities play a key role in today’s world: they are crucial to our decision-making and help to mould us and shape the way we think, feel and act.

The (chosen) family is depicted in different ways in photography and art: photographers document everyday family life and use the camera to capture moments of heightened emotion. Family members can also become partners in the photographic process, contributing to the act of image-making. This finds its way into the exhibition as well as genealogical projects in which artists set out to explore their own personal histories on the basis of the lives their ancestors lived.

Just like the photographic testimony we have of them, family stories speak of diversity, individuality and collectivity, intimacy and distance. Family and chosen family imply chaos and happiness, quirky habits and the sharing of everyday banalities and powerful feelings. At best, family and community represent a familiar slice of home.

Text from the Fotomuseum Winterthur website

 

Richard Billingham (English, b. 1970) 'Untitled' 1995

 

Richard Billingham (English, b. 1970)
Untitled
1995
From the series Ray’s a laugh, 1989-1996
© Richard Billingham

 

Richard Billingham (English, b. 1970) 'Untitled' 1995

 

Richard Billingham (English, b. 1970)
Untitled
1995
From the series Ray’s a laugh, 1989-1996
© Richard Billingham

 

Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987) From the series 'MOM', 2009- (installation view)

 

Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987)
From the series MOM, 2009- (installation view)
© Charlie Engman
Photo: © Fotomuseum Winterthur / Conradin Frei

 

Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987) 'Baseball Mom' 2017

 

Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987)
Baseball Mom
2017
From the series MOM, 2009-
© Charlie Engman

 

Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987) 'Blue Mom' 2017

 

Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987)
Blue Mom
2017
From the series MOM, 2009-
© Charlie Engman

 

Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987) 'Mom calling' 2019

 

Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987)
Mom calling
2019
From the series MOM, 2009-
© Charlie Engman

 

Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987) 'Mom in the Fields' 2014

 

Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987)
Mom in the Fields
2014
From the series MOM, 2009-
© Charlie Engman

 

Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987) 'Mom with Kage' 2013

 

Charlie Engman (American, b. 1987)
Mom with Kage
2013
From the series MOM, 2009-
© Charlie Engman

 

Seiichi Furuya (Japanese, b. 1950) 'Wien' 1983

 

Seiichi Furuya (Japanese, b. 1950)
Wien
1983
From the series Portrait of Christine Furuya, Graz/Wien, 1978-1984
© Seiichi Furuya and Galerie Thomas Fischer

 

Seiichi Furuya (Japanese, b. 1950) 'Graz' 1979

 

Seiichi Furuya (Japanese, b. 1950)
Graz
1979
From the series Portrait of Christine Furuya, Graz/Wien, 1978-1984
© Seiichi Furuya and Galerie Thomas Fischer

 

Pixy Liao (Chinese, b. 1979) 'Some Words Are Just Between Us' 2013

 

Pixy Liao (Chinese, b. 1979)
Some Words Are Just Between Us
2013
From the series Experimental Relationship, 2007-
© Pixy Liao

 

Pixy Liao (Chinese, b. 1979) 'Things We Talked About' 2013

 

Pixy Liao (Chinese, b. 1979)
Things We Talked About
2013
From the series Experimental Relationship, 2007-
© Pixy Liao

 

Pixy Liao (Chinese, b. 1979) 'It's Never Been Easy to Carry You' 2013

 

Pixy Liao (Chinese, b. 1979)
It’s Never Been Easy to Carry You
2013
From the series Experimental Relationship, 2007-
© Pixy Liao

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Chosen Family – Less Alone Together' at the Fotomuseum Winterthur showing at left, Pixy Liao's work from the series 'Experimental Relationship' (2007-); and at right, Dayanita Singh's work from the series 'The Third Sex Portfolio' (1989-1999)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Chosen Family – Less Alone Together at the Fotomuseum Winterthur showing at left, Pixy Liao’s work from the series Experimental Relationship (2007-, above); and at right, Dayanita Singh’s work from the series The Third Sex Portfolio (1989-1999, below)
Photo: © Winterthur / Conradin Frei

 

Pixy Liao (Chinese, b. 1979) 'Carry The Weight Of You' 2017

 

Pixy Liao (Chinese, b. 1979)
Carry The Weight Of you
2017
From the series Experimental Relationship, 2007-
© Pixy Liao

 

Pixy Liao (Chinese, b. 1979) 'Find A Woman You Can Rely On' 2018

 

Pixy Liao (Chinese, b. 1979)
Find A Woman You Can Rely On
2018
From the series Experimental Relationship, 2007-
© Pixy Liao

 

 

The exhibition Chosen Family – Less Alone Together draws on international positions and works from the collection of Fotomuseum Winterthur to shed light on photography’s treatment of the (elective) family and its representation of it as a social and cultural construct. The artistic approaches on display are as varied as the different family stories they depict. In addition to the works of professional photographers and artists, the museum also presents personal photo albums, showing the family stories of people from Winterthur and from all over Switzerland.

The exhibition Chosen Family – Less Alone Together presents works by contemporary photographers who delve into their own family history, examining and exploring their past. Alba Zari‘s work involves a reappraisal of her own family history mediated by pictures from her family archive and contemporary photographic documents. The artist – who was born into a fundamentalist Christian sect – uses scraps of text and image fragments to investigate the history of her family and explore her own identity in the process. The photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa also uses pictures to reconstruct events from the past. When he was just seven, his sister, who was six years older than him, disappeared without a trace and did not return until ten years later. With the help of a documentary photo book, Sobekwa attempts to create a picture – quite literally – of this formative point in his life, a time he knows very little about and which no one has spoken about for ages. Richard Billingham, meanwhile, grapples with his own history and biography by making a loving yet unsparing record of his parents’ life and day-to-day reality, in the process showing a domestic world shaped by poverty and addiction. Diana Markosian processes her family history in a short film featuring actors she cast in their roles and clever set photography. Her narrative video sequences re-enact her own childhood memories, which she stages as cinematic imagery. The film’s perspective is shaped by the experience of migration undergone by her mother, who left her husband after the break-up of the Soviet Union and moved with her children to the US to marry an American.

Other artists present themselves and members of their family in sometimes elaborately staged settings. By breaking open and re-enacting the family structures, their work reflects on the roles played by the individual family members and the photographers’ own position within this constellation. This way of exploring family dynamics turns members of the family into collaborative partners in the image-making process. Charlie Engman, for example, presents his ‘mom’ in settings that have little in common with our conception of a mother’s everyday reality: we may see her posing in a hydrogen-blonde wig, with blue eyeshadow and a fierce, challenging look, or climbing up a rope ladder fixed to a tree, wearing white knickers. Engman’s work playfully calls into question the one-dimensional image of the caring mother. Pixie Liao also takes a playful approach as she bucks classic role models: her portraits of herself together with her partner subtly subvert stereotypical ideas of men and women. The photographs show her partner resting his head on her shoulder or being held in her arms. Photographer Leonard Suryajaya, meanwhile, stages his parents and extended family using symbolically charged props in elaborately arranged environments fitted out with rugs and fabrics. The at times quirky interactions between individual members of the family are at odds with our idea of a conventional family portrait.

Other artistic explorations focus on the fact that family can be defined by much more than just (blood) kinship and is experienced via community constellations with deep bonds. These works show how photography can be a means of creating new ‘images of family’ that offer an alternative to middle-class notions of it. Their depictions of communities that exist outside traditional constellations challenge our concept of how a conventional family looks. Dayanita Singh, for example, took pictures of Mona Ahmed and her adopted daughter Ayesha during the 1990s. Ahmed identifies as a hijra, as part, that is, of a community that rejects a binary view of gender and the norms it imposes. Members of the community, which has existed for thousands of years, were criminalised under British colonial rule and they are still exposed to discrimination and violence today. As viewers of Singh’s work, we are confronted with images that challenge our idea of traditional families and communities. Photographer Mark Morrisroe also depicts a sense of cohesiveness apart from kinship in portraits of his friends and lovers – his gang – who were the hub of his daily activities and a pivotal element in his life. The pictures reveal the deep emotional connection between the protagonists, expressing complicity and a sense of belonging, an embodiment of the idea of elective family.

In addition to the works of international artists, Fotomuseum Winterthur is also exhibiting photo albums and presenting the stories of families from Winterthur and Switzerland in association with the pictures. As part of an open call, the museum is offering people the opportunity to share their personal family stories with visitors and to display their family photos in one of the exhibition spaces.

An exhibition of international loans and items from the collection of Fotomuseum Winterthur, curated by Nadine Wietlisbach with the support of Katrin Bauer. With works by Aarati Akkapeddi, Richard Billingham, Larry Clark, Charlie Engman, Seiichi Furuya, Nan Goldin, Pixy Liao, Diana Markosian, Anne Morgenstern, Mark Morrisroe, Dayanita Singh, Lindokuhle Sobekwa, Annelies Štrba, Leonard Suryajaya and Alba Zari. Christoph Merian Verlag will publish the book ChosenFamily – Less alone together as an adjunct to the exhibition.

 

Selection of Artists

Alba Zari (b. 1987) embarks on a forensic photographic search in her ongoing work Occult, which sets out to explore her family history. The Italian artist was born into the fundamentalist Christian sect The Children of God (now known as The Family International) after her grandmother and mother fell into its clutches at the ages of 33 and 13 respectively. The cult was discredited because it encouraged sex with minors and forced women into prostitution as a way to ‘recruit’ new members. Using her family archive as well as texts and visuals of the sect, archive images of other members and found material from the internet, Zari explores her own family history, while also reflecting on the propaganda tools and mechanisms deployed by the Children of God. The photographs in Zari’s work function both as source materials and as a medium in themselves. Her compilation of these different images not only indicates how photographs are used to spread untruths but also helps to reveal and expose them to critical view. The artist’s multimedia research thus renders an overall sense of the categories and symbols we use to define and represent family, yielding a picture that is at once self-reflexive and charged with social criticism.

Seiichi Furuya (b. 1950) took portrait pictures of his wife Christine Gössler over a period of several years. Furuya was fascinated by his partner from the moment they met and was deeply attached to her. For him, photography was a way to capture the numerous facets of the woman who was both his wife and the mother of his child. What was key here was not so much the finished picture but rather the brief, rapt moment of being face to face with one another. His photographs were not just an observation of his subject but also an act of self-discovery. The relationship between the couple came to a tragic end when Christine took her own life in 1985. Furuya’s hundreds of photographs of her are still an important element in his work today and, over the decades, he has repeatedly made new compilations of them. His preoccupation with them entails grief work. As he puts it, it is a way for him to pursue the ‘truth’, even if, in the end, he only ever finds himself back with his own version of the story.

What does a modern romantic relationship look like? How is its shape determined by the expectations of the individuals involved and by social preconceptions? Pixy Liao (b. 1979) focuses on these questions in her long-term photographic project Experimental Relationship, in which the artist presents herself with her partner in a range of staged situations. The couple switch between different modes at different times and may be serious or humorous, vulnerable or self-assured. When Liao met her partner in 2005, she quickly realised that he did not fit in with the conservative ideas that had informed her socialisation, and her received sense of gender roles began to unravel. Liao used this as an opportunity to examine their relationship – along with the cultural and social dynamics inscribed in it. In her photographs, it is Liao, then, who supports her partner as he lies across her shoulders or shows him stripped down to his underpants as she – herself fully clothed, it should be noted – tweaks his nipple. It is Liao who lays the man’s naked body across a table, using it as a serving dish from which to eat a papaya. Not only are gender stereotypes and clichés inverted in Liao’s work but their power dynamics are questioned and probed in a shared performative act in front of the camera.

Lindokuhle Sobekwa‘s (b. 1995) handmade photo book I Carry Her Photo with Me, is an attempt on the part of the South African documentary photographer to reconstruct the life of his sister Ziyanda, who disappeared in 2002 at the age of 13. She did not return to her family until ten years later, by which time she was seriously ill and died shortly afterwards. Sobekwa’s documentary research of places where his sister stayed allows him to make artistic assumptions about her life. It is not uncommon for people in South African townships to disappear. Sobekwa’s work thus not only deals with his very personal family history but also focuses on questions affecting society as a whole. The title of the book documents Sobekwa’s desire to preserve the memory of his sister, while also standing for the effort to enshrine in the collective memory the fates of other people who have disappeared.

For all the colourful patterned wallpaper and kitschy interior decorations they show, the photographs by British artist Richard Billingham (b. 1970) are not images of a stable family in a sheltered environment. Growing up in a precarious household, affected by alcoholism, violence and his parents’ lack of prospects, Billingham began working in 1989 – at the age of 19 – on a complex photographic portrait of a dysfunctional family constellation, a project that he would continue over a period of seven years. In a bid to productively confront his day-to-day sense of powerlessness, the young artist makes his own parents’ lack of agency the tragicomic subject of his photographs. The domestic poverty in the images, which is at once tragic and sensitively portrayed, was seen by art critics as a sociopolitical comment on the upheavals of the Thatcher era. However, Billingham’s Family Album should not simply be viewed as a metaphor representing a sociopolitical crisis – it is first and foremost autobiographical in form and a means of coping with the present.

Press release from the Fotomuseum Winterthur

 

Diana Markosian (American-Armenian, b. 1989) 'Christmas Morning' 2019

 

Diana Markosian (American-Armenian, b. 1989)
Christmas Morning
2019
From the series Santa Barbara, 2019-2020
© Diana Markosian and Galerie Les filles du Calvaire

 

Diana Markosian (American-Armenian, b. 1989)

Diana Markosian (born 1989) is an American artist of Armenian descent, working as a documentary photographer, writer, and filmmaker.

Markosian is known for her photo essays, including Inventing My Father, (2013-2014) about her relationship with her father, and 1915, (2015) about the lives of those who survived the Armenian genocide and the land from which they were expelled. Her most recent project, Santa Barbara, published by Aperture, reconstructs her mother’s journey from post-Soviet Russia to America, inspired by a 1980s American soap opera. Through a series of staged photographs and a narrative video, the artist reconsiders her family history from her mother’s perspective, relating to her for the first time as a woman rather than a parent, and coming to terms with the profound sacrifices her mother made to become an American.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Diana Markosian (American-Armenian, b. 1989) 'The Wedding' 2019

 

Diana Markosian (American-Armenian, b. 1989)
The Wedding
2019
From the series Santa Barbara, 2019-2020
© Diana Markosian and Galerie Les filles du Calvaire

 

Diana Markosian (American-Armenian, b. 1989) 'The Arrival' 2019

 

Diana Markosian (American-Armenian, b. 1989)
The Arrival
2019
From the series Santa Barbara, 2019-2020
© Diana Markosian and Galerie Les filles du Calvaire

 

My family arrived to America in 1996. My mother described it as the arrival to nowhere, with the hope of going somewhere.

 

Anne Morgenstern (German, b. 1976) From the series 'Whatever the Fuck You Want' 2018-2020

 

Anne Morgenstern (German, b. 1976)
From the series Whatever the Fuck You Want
2018-2020
© Anne Morgenstern

 

Anne Morgenstern (German, b. 1976) From the series 'Whatever the Fuck You Want' 2018-2020

 

Anne Morgenstern (German, b. 1976)
From the series Whatever the Fuck You Want
2018-2020
© Anne Morgenstern

 

Anne Morgenstern (German, b. 1976) From the series 'Whatever the Fuck You Want' 2018-2020

 

Anne Morgenstern (German, b. 1976)
From the series Whatever the Fuck You Want
2018-2020
© Anne Morgenstern

 

Anne Morgenstern (German, b. 1976) From the series 'Whatever the Fuck You Want' 2018-2020 (installation view)

 

Anne Morgenstern (German, b. 1976)
From the series Whatever the Fuck You Want 2018-2020 (installation view)
© Anne Morgenstern
Photo: © Fotomuseum Winterthur / Conradin Frei

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Chosen Family – Less Alone Together' at the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland

 

Installation view of the exhibition Chosen Family – Less Alone Together at the Fotomuseum Winterthur showing at left the work of Mark Morrisroe (below), and at right, the work of Alba Zari (below)
Photo: © Winterthur / Conradin Frei

 

Mark Morrisroe (American, 1959-1989) 'Untitled (Lynelle)' c. 1985

 

Mark Morrisroe (American, 1959-1989)
Untitled (Lynelle)
c. 1985

 

Mark Morrisroe (American, 1959-1989)

Mark Morrisroe (January 10, 1959 – July 24, 1989) was an American performance artist and photographer. He is known for his performances and photographs, which were germane in the development of the punk scene in Boston in the 1970s and the art world boom of the mid- to late 1980s in New York City. By the time of his death he had created some 2,000 pieces of work…

His career as a photographer began when he was given a Polaroid Model 195 Land Camera. He experimented with unusual development techniques, receiving generous support of supplies, film, and chemicals from the Polaroid Corporation. Within his close circle of friends he soon laid claim to the “invention” of what are called “sandwich” prints – enlargements of double negatives of the same subject mounted on top of one another – which yielded an elaborate pictorial quality, producing a very iconic painterly impression in the final result, which over time he learned to use in an increasingly controlled way.

Early on, the artist recognised the intrinsic value of prints – irrespective of the medium used to produce them – as pictorial objects that he could manipulate, colour, paint and write on at will. Thus, Morrisroe scrawled comments, biographical notes and dedications on the side of his pictures, which made them very personal pieces of art. His photographs were mostly portraits, and his subjects included lovers, friends, hustlers, and people who visited his apartment. He also often incorporated stills from Super 8 films. There are a few photographs which incorporate landscapes and external shots.

Morrisroe died on July 24, 1989, aged 30, in Jersey City, New Jersey from complications of AIDS. His ashes are scattered in McMinnville, Oregon on the farm of his last boyfriend, Ramsey McPhillips. He is considered a member of the Boston School of Photography and his work is found in many important collections including that of the Whitney and MOCA of Los Angeles. The estate of Mark Morrisroe (Collection Ringier) is currently located at the Fotomuseum Winterthur.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Mark Morrisroe (American, 1959-1989) 'Ramsey (Lake Oswego)' 1986

 

Mark Morrisroe (American, 1959-1989)
Ramsey (Lake Oswego)
1986
Chromogenic print

 

What’s most amazing about this work is that much of it was executed in impromptu darkrooms the artist rigged up in his hospital bathrooms. Morrisroe’s courageous, unrelenting drive to keep making art is inspiring. The catalogue essayists clarify a body of work done in considerable isolation; there were no longer cute friends around to get naked with (except, perhaps, the artist’s last partner, Ramsey McPhillips). Very often Morrisroe was by himself. The black-and-white Polaroids of the artist nude, lying in the sunlight, his body wasted to a bony apparition of his former saturnine self, are among the most moving in the show.

Morrisroe died, but his spirit lives on – not only in the additional prints that will no doubt now come on the market in increasing numbers, but as the avatar of young video and performance artists, like Kalup Linzy and Ryan Trecartin, who wreak havoc with gender and identity. There’s also a renewed fervor over ’80s homoerotic work and its role in the American culture wars. The recent censorship of David Wojnarowicz’s video A Fire in My Belly (1986), removed from the exhibition “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. (then screened at a dozen museums and acquired by New York’s Museum of Modern Art), provoked memories of the first fracas over Wojnarowicz’s work and NEA funding. Back then, in 1989, the controversial show was “Against Our Vanishing,” curated by Nan Goldin for Artists Space, and it included, posthumously, photographs by Morrisroe.

Brooks Adams. “Beautiful, Dangerous People,” on the Art in American website February 28, 2011 [Online] Cited 10/10/2022

 

Dayanita Singh (Indian, b. 1961) 'On his arrival each eunuch was greeted by me with garland of jasmine flowers. Ayesha's first birthday' 1990

 

Dayanita Singh (Indian, b. 1961)
On his arrival each eunuch was greeted by me with garland of jasmine flowers. Ayesha’s first birthday
1990
From the series The Third Sex Portfolio, 1989-1999
© Dayanita Singh

 

Dayanita Singh (Indian, b. 1961)

Dayanita Singh (born 18 March 1961) is an Indian photographer whose primary format is the book. She has published fourteen books.

Singh’s art reflects and expands on the ways in which people relate to photographic images. Her later works, drawn from her extensive photographic oeuvre, are a series of mobile museums allowing her images to be endlessly edited, sequenced, archived and displayed. Stemming from her interest in the archive, the museums present her photographs as interconnected bodies of work that are full of both poetic and narrative possibilities.

Publishing is also a significant part of Singh’s practice. She has created multiple “book-objects” – works that are concurrently books, art objects, exhibitions, and catalogues – often with the publisher Steidl. Museum Bhavan has been shown at the Hayward Gallery, London (2013), the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2014), the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (2014) and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi (2016).

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Dayanita Singh (Indian, b. 1961) 'I get this strong urge to dance from within. Ayesha's second birthday' 1991

 

Dayanita Singh (Indian, b. 1961)
I get this strong urge to dance from within. Ayesha’s second birthday
1991
From the series The Third Sex Portfolio, 1989-1999
© Dayanita Singh

 

Dayanita Singh (Indian, b. 1961) 'Shalu dances on Ayesha's second birthday' 1991

 

Dayanita Singh (Indian, b. 1961)
Shalu dances on Ayesha’s second birthday
1991
From the series The Third Sex Portfolio, 1989-1999
© Dayanita Singh

 

Lindokuhle Sobekwa (South African, b. 1995) From the artist book 'I Carry Her Photo with Me' 2017

 

Lindokuhle Sobekwa (South African, b. 1995)
From the artist book I Carry Her Photo with Me
2017
Baryta paper
Artist book scan p. 3-4. 2014/2018
40cm x 60cm
Magnum Photo, Magnum Foundation, Gerhard Steidl, Subotzky Studios, David Krut Studios, Josh Ginsburg, Mark Sealy
© Lindokuhle Sobekwa and Magnum Photos

 

Lindokuhle Sobekwa (South African, b. 1995) From the artist book 'I Carry Her Photo with Me' 2017

 

Lindokuhle Sobekwa (South African, b. 1995)
From the artist book I Carry Her Photo with Me
2017
Baryta paper
Artist book scan p. 9-10. 2014/2018
40cm x 60cm
Magnum Photo, Magnum Foundation, Gerhard Steidl, Subotzky Studios, David Krut Studios, Josh Ginsburg, Mark Sealy
© Lindokuhle Sobekwa and Magnum Photos

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Ån 22' From the series 'Filmstills aus Dawa-Video', 2001

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Ån 22
From the series Filmstills aus Dawa-Video, 2001
C-Print
40 x 50cm
© Annelies Štrba

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)

Annelies Štrba is a Swiss multimedia artist, who lives in the Zurich metropolitan area. She works with video, photography, and digital media to approach her subjects, which range from domestically themed images, portraiture, and both urban and natural landscapes.

Štrba combines photography, digital media, and film to chronicle her physical and emotional life. A mother of three, she has been documenting her family environment through her work for over four decades. Her best-known bodies of work, Shades of Time, AYA, NYIMA, and her most recent publication, Noonday, depict her immediate family including her three children, and five grandchildren. Although she is working with subject matter that is very personal and quite literally close to home, Štrba constructs a quality of fantastical narrative in her pictures, utilising combinations of the different mediums in her repertoire. While creating images that evoke fantastical emotion using technological processes, she simultaneously embraces a sense from 19th-century romanticism while addressing themes of domesticity and nature.

Štrba uses a digital camera to capture moments and figures in film and still, which she then colours with the aid of computer programs. This digital manipulation provides Štrba’s images with a sense of painterliness and allows her to abandon naturalism and realist details in favour of complex visual textures. She often photographs around the family homes just outside of Zurich or in the Swiss mountains, where they spend many weekends and holidays. The product is a personal and poetically abstract documentation of the life around her, capturing her subjects at the dining room table, grooming, in the chaos of untidy rooms, or surrounded by nature. Overall, a personal story is told of the intertwined lives and relationships, speaking to memories, reactions, and nostalgic realisation.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Ån 36' From the series 'Filmstills aus Dawa-Video', 2001

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Ån 36
From the series Filmstills aus Dawa-Video, 2001
C-Print
40 x 50cm
© Annelies Štrba

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947) 'Ån 34' From the series 'Filmstills aus Dawa-Video', 2001

 

Annelies Štrba (Swiss, b. 1947)
Ån 34
From the series Filmstills aus Dawa-Video, 2001
© Annelies Štrba

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988) 'Dad Duck' 2020

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988)
Dad Duck
2020
From the series False Idol, 2016-2020
© Leonard Suryajaya

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988) 'Good Neighbors' 2018

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988)
Good Neighbors
2018
From the series False Idol, 2016-2020
© Leonard Suryajaya

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988) 'Hoda' 2018

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988)
Hoda
2018
From the series False Idol, 2016-2020
© Leonard Suryajaya

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988) 'Virtual Reality' 2017

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988)
Virtual Reality
2017
From the series False Idol, 2016-2020
© Leonard Suryajaya

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988) 'Little Sissy' 2017

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988)
Little Sissy
2017
From the series False Idol, 2016-2020
© Leonard Suryajaya

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988) 'Two Bodies' 2017

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988)
Two Bodies
2017
From the series False Idol, 2016-2020
© Leonard Suryajaya

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988) From the series 'False Idol' 2016-2020 (installation view)

 

Leonard Suryajaya (Chinese-Indonesian, b. 1988)
From the series False Idol, 2016-2020 (installation view)
© Leonard Suryajaya
Photo: © Fotomuseum Winterthur / Conradin Frei

 

Alba Zari (Thailand, b. 1987) 'Family Archive' From the series 'Occult', 2019-

 

Alba Zari (Thailand, b. 1987)
Family Archive
From the series Occult, 2019-
© Alba Zari

 

Alba Zari (Thailand, b. 1987) 'Family Archive' From the series 'Occult', 2019-

 

Alba Zari (Thailand, b. 1987)
Family Archive
From the series Occult, 2019-
© Alba Zari

 

Poster for the exhibition 'Chosen Family – Less Alone Together' at the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland

 

Poster for the exhibition Chosen Family – Less Alone Together at the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland

 

 

Fotomuseum Winterthur
Grüzenstrasse 44 + 45
CH-8400
Winterthur (Zürich)

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday 11am – 6pm
Wednesday 11am – 8pm
Closed on Mondays

Fotomuseum Winterthur website

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