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02#10 Eiffel Tower 1997 42#14 Afternoon at Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco 2004

Thomas Kellner

 Who would have thought that so much wonder could still be created with straight photographs in a time given to digital manipulation?” Alan G. Artner, Chicago Tribune

On January the 16th the in focus Gallery in Cologne opens the exhibition “Thomas Kellner - Black & White”. The black and white tableaux that Kellner did in the beginnings of 1997 until 2005 will be shown. With this exhibition Kellner recalls on his roots as an artist and on the roots of an analogue black and white photography based on silver.

Since 1871 black and white photography is the first widely spread visual medium in our cultural history. Black and white photography was the dominant photography for almost 60 years before color photography was introduced to a wider audience. Those who have followed Kellner’s photography over the years know that mostly his color works were published and exhibited. But there also was a past in black and white!

Today, many artists return back to the laboratories and with that, to black & white photography, as well as cameras are made only to shoot black and white again. Most of his black and white works were never published before but they reflect his early career, when he worked mostly in black and white and did a lot of experiments in the laboratory. Around 1997 he developed his unique visual language based on a multi-perspective, deconstructive approach with the outer look of a sequential contact sheet of a 35 mm film.

Starting with his first sketches of the Eiffel Tower in 1997 thought of as a homage to Robert Delaunay and the movement of orphism in Paris, Kellner turned his attention from landscape distinctly to architecture and a growing complexity of his compositions. He creates ageless classic images in his newly invented visual language, orientated on cubistic art. In his early black and white images one can see his focus on the structure itself. The balance between the object and its visual form stand in the center of his creations.

Kellner’s original concept was to create images with 36 exposures out of the length of one film. Later he used two roles of film or even more. The exhibition shows for the first time iconic black and white images from places like San Francisco, New York City and Chicago. The exhibition, taking place in January in the in focus Gallery, Cologne, also shows some larger scale works, for example an impressive image of the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao.

The exhibition will show a selection of 40 of the best black and white images.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a book, published with Seltmann+Söhne, Lüdenscheid / Berlin with 120 pages and hard cover.

 

Opening on Saturday, January 16, 2016, 7 – 9 pm.

Exhibition until March 19, 2016

Opening times:

up to February 13, every Tuesday till Friday 4 – 7 pm, Saturday 11 am – 6 pm.

up to March 19 only after appointment

 

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