The Cologne-based in focus Gallery - Burkhard Arnold can look back on three decades of successful work in the field of art mediation in January 2020. Founded at the beginning of 1990 in Hochstadenstraße as an author's gallery, it quickly developed into a professionally managed company that has become an indispensable part of Cologne's cultural landscape. Today, in focus Galerie is one of the oldest photo galleries in Germany with an international exhibition program.
In concrete terms, "classics" of photography humaniste such as Willy Ronis, Édouard Boubat or Sabine Weiss are among the artists represented in focus, as are Marc Riboud, Elliott Erwitt or Thomas Hoepker as members of the Magnum Group.
The early highlight of the gallery's work was certainly its homage to Bruce Davidson. In addition to other solo exhibitions with works by the Hamburg fashion photographer F. C. Gundlach, the Czech Jan Saudek, the Frenchman Jeanloup Sieff, the Swiss René Groebli or Lucien Clergue, also known as a co-founder of Rencontres d'Arles, group exhibitions were held again and again, which, on the one hand, discussed a theme in sometimes controversial positions, and, on the other hand, helped artists of the gallery to make a "collective" appearance. The exhibition of 2016, a tribute to Marilyn Monroe with photographs by Elliott Erwitt, Edward Clark, André de Dienes, Arnold Newman, Eve Arnold, and George Barris, is a good example.
With the conceptual works of Thomas Kellner, the temporary installations of the Dutch artist Scarlett Hooft-Graafland that affect Landart, the photographs of the Austrian artist Sissi Farassat embroidered with Swarovski crystals and threads, and several other contemporary positions, as well as the "Concrete Photographers" around Gottfried Jäger, Karl Martin Holzhäuser, Roger Humbert, René Mächler, and Floris M. Neusüss extended the gallery program into the experimental: the photograph itself becomes the object of artistic reflection.
All in all, it is a success story with over 170 exhibitions, which will be celebrated from mid-January with a picture show that takes stock of three decades of gallery work.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue of 160 pages with an essay by Hans-Michael Koetzle (Munich) and an article by Burkhard Arnold "Fotografie als Kunst- und Sammelobjekt" with numerous illustrations.
Opening on 11 January 2020 from 6:00 to 9:30 pm
with an introduction by Hans-Michael Koetzle (freelance writer, photo curator and publicist)
Exhibition until 27 March 2020
Opening hours: Tue - Fr. 4 - 7pm, Sa 11am - 3pm.
(closed about carnival from 20.02.2020 to 25.02.2020)
to top