the life of things

The "photo-stories" of the renowned Siegert Collection are told in a really special, inconspicuous way. They comprise a convolute of snapshots by various photographers from the almost 150-year development of photography, which can be better characterized by their approach to the subject matter rather than any style or photographic technique. The approximately 150 exhibits provide an overview of the idea of still life in photography for the first time on the international scale.

We will find in this remarkable and extraordinary collection of arranged photographs all kinds of variations on things such as flowers, fruit, foodstuff, hunting trophies, fragments of animal and human bodies as well as "objets trouvés" and surreal and abstract compositions. In addition to photographs from the 19th century, where topics and staging are directly connected with still life in painting (i.a., French and English photographers such as Camille Silvy, Charles Aubry, Louis-Rémy Robert and John Thomson), we can encounter already at this time a new photographic manner of interpretation of the objective world (e.g., with German photographers Ludwig Belitski and August Kotzsch).

The exhibits from the 20th century demonstrate how this genre slowly expanded and eventually overstepped its bounds (beginning with photographs by Baron Adolphe de Meyer, Wilhelm von Gloeden, Man Ray, Roger Parry, Herbert Bayer, Walter Peterhans, Hans Bellmer, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Herbert List, Wols, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine and Madame dęOra up to David Hockney and Jürgen Klauke).

This rich selection pays special attention to those Czech photographers, who within the framework of the given theme represent surreal and poetical approach to the world of things (such as František Drtikol, Josef Sudek, Miloš Koreček, Emila Medková, Václav Zykmund, Jan Svoboda and Alois Nožička).

Pressetext

the life of things
the idea of still life in photography (1840-1985)
The Siegert Collection

mit Herbert Bayer, Hans Bellmer, Adolf de Meyer, Wilhelm von Gloeden, Man Ray, Roger Parry, Walter Peterhans, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Herbert List, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, Alois Nozicka, Madame d´Ora, David Hockney, Jürgen Klauke, Frantisek Drtikol, Josef Sudek, Milos Korecek, Emila Medkova, Jan Svoboda, Wols , Vaclav Zykmund ...