Annette Kelm: Tomato Target

Annette Kelm’s photographs show precise fractious motifs that quote the genre of still life, studio or architectural photography without fully complying with the conventions that govern these genres.

Things are flattened into the photographic plane, or subjected to multiplication in series. Often captured in frontal views and in great detail, the minimal and yet visually opulent object worlds underscore their translation into the two-dimensional space of photography. Kelm’s conceptual approach, the exceptional sharpness of her images, and the neutral lighting, lend the scenes rendered in her works a peculiar salience. The emphasis on the factual precludes any symbolism strictly speaking; however, the cultural or ideological character with which certain objects are fraught is unmistakable. The focus on formal criteria and the eschewal of narration of any kind are also destabilized by the selective insertion of props that bear no readily recognizable relation to the picture’s central object.

The exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien turns the spotlight on works in which architecture, design, or constellations of objects are revealed as visual manifestations of complex genealogies. The Research Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Shipbuilding [Versuchsanstalt für Wasserbau und Schiffsbau] in Berlin—an iconic building that houses facilities for experiments in fluid mechanics—appears in her photograph as an abstract architectonic volume of color. In the series “Friendly Tournament,” (the shooting targets pitted with holes and small craters from being struck by arrows) recall Lucio Fontana’s perforated canvases and offer an analysis of the interrelation between figure and ground, between three-dimensional reality and its representation, which is both intellectually astute and concise. Yet here, too, something enigmatic remains.

Kelm’s visual creations crystallize a fascinating paradox: the signifiers and motifs are perfectly legible, but their openness at the same time leads to manifold associations. There are traces we can pursue, references we can decode, but in the end it is the exacting photographic gaze on things that prompts us to reflect on reality—and the potentials of its representation.

Curator: Nicolaus Schafhausen

Annette Kelm is an artist and photographer. In 2018, Kelm’s work was the subject of exhibitions at the Ludwig Foundation, Aachen; the Fosun Foundation, Shanghai; Gió Marconi, Milan; and the Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York. Kelm contributed work to New Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2013, and to ILLUMInations, 54th Venice Biennale, 2011. Solo exhibitions of Kelm’s work includes; Leaves, Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover, 2017; Affinities, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, 2016; Dust, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, 2014; and Kunsthalle Zürich, 2009, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2009, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, 2008, and Witte de With, Rotterdam, 2008.