Miriam Bäckström: Material for a film
Joachim Koester: The Magic Mirror of John Dee and other works
Technology & Aesthetics — Preus Museum’s Collections
21.10-30.12.2007
Kulturparken Karljohansvern
Kommandørkaptein Klincks vei 7
Pb. 254 NO-254 3192 Horten
Preus Museum, Norway’s national museum for photography, is pleased to announce the opening of three new exhibitions that all enforces the museums ambition to bridge the gap between the classical history of photography and contemporary photographic theory and practice.
In the galleries, the museum opens two solo presentations by Miriam Bäckström (SE) and Joachim Koester (DK). Both artists show recent work dealing with ideas of history, identity and representation.
Miriam Bäckström has received international attention for her films Rebecka (2004), The Viewer (2005) and Kira Carpelan (2007), all of which deal with identity as an unstable entity and the precarious and unfixed relationship between image and self-image. A critical concern in much of Bäckström’s recent works is camera-based medias fundamental capacity to produce and circulate images, referring both to mental and physical images.
Joachim Koester is known for his series of photographic works that activate the tradition of both documentary and conceptual photography. Koester’s photographic works often engage in a questioning of photography’s possibility to represent heavily historicized and mythologized spaces and places. Central in these works is also an exploration of the latent mental and material presence of history in contemporary landscapes and cityscapes.
Bäckström and Koester have not previously had solo presentations in Norway.
In the permanent exhibition, the museum opens a new presentation of the collection. Taking the museum’s collections of photographs and technical equipment as a starting point, this exhibition explores the close but complex relationship between the development of photographic technology and the aesthetic and social development of photography. Divided into seven themes based on elements of the full photographic process of production, the exhibition presents a technological timeline and a set of central aesthetic issues derived from it: The Process (Painterly vs Documentary), The Camera (Mobile vs Static), The Lens (Wide angle vs Tele photo), Shutters and F-stops (Sharpness vs Movement), The Light (Natural vs Artificial), The Darkroom (Straight vs Manipulated) and Distribution (Exclusive vs Common).
Catalogues are forthcoming. The presentations of Miriam Bäckström and Joachim Koester is supported by Nordic Culture Point.
Program Sunday 21 October
12.30 “Changing Images”
On how images change meaning. Contributions by Miriam Bäckström, Joachim Koester, Anders Kreuger og Jonas Ekeberg.
2 pm Opening reception
3 pm “Everything you always wanted to know about photography but were afraid to ask.” Norwegian photographers answer questions about their technique. With Dag Alveng, Jim Bengston, Else Marie Hagen, Torbjørn Rødland ao. Introduction by Jonas Ekeberg, curator, Technology and Aesthetics.
