Frozen Mirrors

Georges Adéagbo, Helene Appel, Guillaume Bijl, Saskia Groneberg, Karin Kneffel, Rona Kobel, Wolfgang Matuschek, Stefanie Pöllot, Lilla von Puttkamer, Florian Slotawa, Konstantin Totibadze, Michael Wesely, René Wirths, Melanie Woste

Exhibition: October 31, 2024 – April 26, 2025

Curator: Ludwig Seyfarth

Is “frozen” time not an even greater illusion than deceptively real depictions of an object? What significance does the deliberately staged still-life-like standstill have in an age in which we are constantly surrounded by moving images? These questions inform the exhibition Frozen Mirrors.

The title Frozen Mirrors was inspired by Umberto Eco’s observation that the photographic plate is a “freezing mirror”. Before the invention of photography, mirrored images were the only ones that were not created by human hand. Mirrors, however, are unable to conserve or suspend in time the image they reveal. The retention or “freezing” of a certain moment or occurrence only became technically possible with the advent of the photographic snapshot.

The works presented in this group exhibition reflect the suspension of time in a period when we are unremittingly surrounded by moving images. On display, among others, will be “photorealistic” images that are not all based on photographs; artefacts that have been replicated exactly life size or in monumental dimensions; mises-en-scène of real objects that look like their own trompe l’ œils; photographs of everyday situations arranged like still lifes or conflating longer spans of time.

The exhibition Frozen Mirrors, following on from Phantoms and Other Illusions and Bodies, Grids and Ecstasy, explores further facets regarding illusions and how they are reflected in contemporary art. Here, illusionistic images are juxtaposed with products of the imagination that often transpire to be illusions.

 

Public guided tours | 3 pm: 3.11., 17.11., 1.12., 15.12.2024, 12.1., 26.1., 9.2., 23.2., 9.3., 23.3., 6.4.2025