The Moment is Eternity - Works from the Olbricht Collection

The Moment is Eternity' draws attention to the photographic works of the Olbricht Collection with around 300 exhibited works and objects by around 60 artists and shows them in dialogue with other works of art in the collection and artefacts of the Wunderkammer.

One of the programmatic focuses of the Olbricht Collection is transience. Which artistic medium other than photography would be more suitable for discussing the questions of time and history arising from this?

Making the world sensible and rational is Goethe's 'legacy': with Henri Cartier-Bresson's dictum of the 'decisive moment' (epoch-making) it blends across epoch boundaries to describe an art that captures the essence of an event and its appropriate form in one can grasp. 

Photography only doubles the reality seemingly. From the documentation of self-reflection, it provides information about the condition of human life and society in different epochs. 

Portrait and reflection, staging and self-questioning play a key role. Not only the mirror of the photographic silver image, which Otto Steinert emphasizes in the reversal image of the double-headed portrait of a woman, but also the cultural history of roles and rituals, as presented by Cindy Sherman or Lee Friedlander as a laconic self-image, present the viewer with the mirror of her time. 

Modern painting has found powerful instruments in the reception of photographic processes as well as in the appropriation of medial, historically occupied images, for example in the nudes of Gerhard Richter or Marlene Dumas. 

Photographic vision is comparative vision. For example, Annette Kicken's personal point of view in the diverse Olbricht Collection has identified works that evoke similar vibrations in a series of motifs, subjects, gestures and artefacts through overlays and analogies. They show how everything can communicate with each other. It depends on the moment.

Curated by Annette Kicken.

Me Collectors Room Berlin
Entry €10
Concession €8
IMAGE - Nederlands Fotomuseum © Ed van der Elsken; Courtesy Galerie Kicken Berlin