Refusal of Reality: Subjective Positions in Contemporary Photography

With this exhibition series and the corresponding catalogue nine photographers: Katrin Amft; Marc Grummert; Tim Kellner; Thanh Long; Knut W. Maron; Janet Riedel; Heidi Schneekloth; Michael Strauss and; Janet Zeugner, develop a contemporary discourse about their media. Since 2005 several group exhibitions and linked solo shows throughout Germany and abroad refer to a dynamic and vivid photography art scene in Germany.

The project creates a bridge from the beginnings of radical positions in the context of European contemporary art in the 1920's, via the attitudes of the particular German issue of "subjective photography" in the 1950s, to today.

This ensuing discussion is part of the current European discourse surrounding the photographic medium - it opposes the documentary and realistic representation with a more metaphorical, visionary, poetic and subjective approach to contemporary photography.

Located in close relation to the basic idea of "subjective photography", the work itself both enriches and extends this original concept by technical innovations, such as colour and digital technology, and thus broadens the fusion of different concepts of both painting and photography.

The programmatic point of view - represented by a multiplicity of individual artists - was always present. As their significance increasingly comes to light their work is destined to affect a paradigm change within the discourse of contemporary photography.

This time the exhibition is curated by Tim Kellner, the inaugural visiting research fellow at Sydney College of the Arts. The exhibition is supported by the Goethe Institut and Exhibition Enterprise.

Refusal of Reality will be on display at Sydney College of the Arts from Wednesday 10 September to Saturday 4 October 2008. Opening Tuesday 9 September, 6-8pm.

Image: Tim Kellner, Self Portrait