Kahmann Gallery expands to Berlin! Kahmann + Krollmann’s art collection, which includes nearly 100 works by international artists, will be presented to the public for the first time. The new space is located on the corner of Hohenzollerdamm & Uhlandstrasse amidst the bustling heart of Berlin. The corner building covers 250 m² and will exhibit the collection of Udo Krollmann and Kahmann in its first exhibition. An excellent opportunity and a suitable match for Kahmann Gallery.
The opening weekend of 4 and 5 March the Gallery will be open from 12:00 to 19:00. The official opening is on Saturday at 16:00 by Roy Kahmann, collector and founder of the Kahmann Gallery Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
The presented artists are:
Albarrán Cabrera (Spain 1969 & 1969), Albert Watson (UK/US 1942), Asha Swillens (Dutch, 1994),, GT Nergaard (Norway 1968), Jacques Olivar (France, 1941), Jan C.Schlegel (Germany, 1965), Jonas Bjerre Poulsen (Denmark, 1976), Marcus Schaefer (Germany, 1987), Neeltje de Vries (Dutch, 1976), Nora Papp (Swiss, 1975), Olga Wagemans (Dutch, 1983), Rolf van Rooij (Dutch 2003), Rutger ten Broeke (Dutch 1944), Sam Warnaar (Dutch, 2000), Sara Punt (Dutch, 1994), Schilte & Portielje (Dutch, 1953 & 1958), Walker Evans (US 1903-1975)
You can find out more about 12 of them in the next two contributions on l’Oeil de la Photographie / Eye of Photography!
Albert Watson UK 1942 (images 3-4)
There is really no need to introduce Albert Watson – he has been among the absolute best in the world for 40 years, and some of his images are part of the collective memory. He is a Scottish photographer, based in New York. Watson is particularly famous for his iconic celebrity, fashion and art photography. His work is featured in galleries and museums worldwide. Watson is ranked among the most influential and successful photographers of all time. Through the wide variety and diversity of his images an effortless versatility is reflected, yet they are always identifiable as Albert Watson photographs by their visual impact and technical virtuosity. The power of Watson lies in his ability to capture and convey his interest in what he sees, be it fashion, nature or a movie star.
He has been working for the biggest magazines in the world, like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Rolling Stone, as well as ad campaigns for world-renowned brands. He has won many awards during his career and even received the Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II in 2015. Throughout his career, Watson has also dedicated a big part of his time in producing a big collection of non-commissioned fine art. His work has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions worldwide and has been included in numerous international private and public collections.
Schilte & Portielje (The Netherlands 1953 & 1958)(Images 5-8)
Huub Schilte and Jacqueline Portielje intensively explore the rich possibilities of the computer as an artistic medium and have been doing so since 1997.
The computer is both their photography darkroom as well as a drawing/painting tool. Their work has been featured in many exhibitions worldwide and has been included in numerous international private and corporate collections. Schilte & Portielje work without a preconceived plan or subject. With their self-produced image fragments, they compose their own dream world. Subtle eroticism, demanding poses, or the quiet poetry of desire are the elements used in this dark world rich in contrast in black and white, filled with characters who are endlessly captivating. In their work Schilte & Portielje constantly explore the boundaries between fantasy and reality, giving it a certain surreal quality. Could the composed black and white figures exist in real life? Are they in pleasure or pain? These questions make Schilte & Portielje’s world one in which you would like to get lost forever.
Nora Papp (Swiss 1975)(Images 9-12)
Nora Papp’s approach is somewhere on the border of photography and digital sculpture. She collects images on the internet, mainly on Instagram which she deconstructs in a postmodern approach, and reduces to a collection of ‘aesthetic data’.
Any digital image can be classified by luminosity, flatness and layers, brightness, contrast, structure, warmth, saturation, colour, highlights, sharpness, production and reproduction, dissemination, storage.
She combines these elements in a certain manner, and changes at each moment het viewpoint so that the existing parts are repeatedly considered in a new light and given new artistic significance, to create a new image. She reassembles the collected images /’aesthetic data through the Illustrator program of Adobe image software.
The result are abstract recognisable personal images with a highly individual signature – surely a distinctive voice in the mass of images produced today
Jan C. Schlegel (Germany 1965)(Images 13-16)
Jan Schlegel his works are reminiscent of original genres of photography and at the same time a renaissance of the old craft of photographic art, which is uniquely able to combine two characteristics – the highest achievable quality and eternal beauty. He explores the boundaries of his medium and asks universal existential questions about identity, beauty and uniqueness of every living thing in all its detail, forms and structures. He is also a master of slowed down photography – he studies, analyses and dissects, thus creating documentary, nearly surrealistic portraits with the greatest concentration on the essence and with extraordinary depth.
In Berlin images are shown of the anthropological series Essence in which he travelled to Africa (Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria & Namibia) and Asia (Afghanistan & Pakistan).
Neeltje de Vries (The Netherlands, 1976) (images 17-21)
« I take most pictures when I’m not photographing. It’s in the subconscious. »
Neeltje de Vries is a photographer based in Amsterdam. She works as an independent photographer. Shooting fine art and commissioned work.
In her work Neeltje looks for images that touch the viewer. Images that tell a story. Searching for the thin line between friction and power. That can be both disturbing and pleasing, but always with an eye for aesthetics.
Jonas Bjerre Poulsen (Denmark, 1976) (Images 22-24)
Fragmenting bodies, architecture and nature, the Danish photographer Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen reinvents the forms around him as luminous images, creating intimate and enigmatic juxtapositions that invite the viewer to look again and imagine what lies beyond the frame.
Trained at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, he mixes his spatial sensibility and understanding of shape with conceptual thoughts and visions that bring creative projects to life. Bjerre-Poulsen has a strong vocation for creating thoughtful works that stand out in an understated, refined manner. For him it is all about balance. Balance between richness and restraint, between order and complexity. Minimalism that acquires softness and visual matter that assumes haptic qualities.
Bjerre-Poulsen has a passion for phenomenology, the philosophical study of human experience. As human beings, we tend to understand the world through a viewpoint that is related to our own body, our own symmetry and scale. But all forms in the universe are structured around the same patterns—from a molecular to celestial scale. When we understand life from that perspective, we understand that humans, nature and the built environment are all part of the same geometric and structural patterns. We translate what we perceive in nature and how we understand our own bodies into what we see in the arts.
The sphere is a recurring motif in his work. It is an image that according to Bjerre-Poulsen could be used to understand life. It is a strong symbol that defines the most intimate of spaces; the womb, relationships between people, and that between man and God. The balance of spheres is what makes nature predictable and mathematical. Geometry is an abstract system of formalization that makes sense to us—squares, triangles, circles. This understanding is incorporated into how we physically construct and mentally understand the world.
Krollmann & Kahmann in Berlin –
Hohenzollerndam 196
10717 Berlin, Germany
The 4 and 5 March the Gallery will be open from 12:00 to 19:00. The official opening is on Saturday at 16:00 by Roy Kahmann, collector and founder of the Kahmann Gallery Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
John Devos
johndevos.photo(ad)gmail.com
