Once again the gallery Bildhalle is hosted at the Forum Paracelsus in St. Moritz this year and presents a group exhibition of important positions in classic and contemporary Swiss photography on the topic of “Winter”.
Winter as a photographic subject has a long tradition in Switzerland. Snow and cold almost completely transform a landscape, concealing many of its characteristics and often reducing them to contrasts, planes and textures. Winter thus invites us to look at a place in a new and different way, to surrender ourselves to the play of light on this blank canvas and to trace the fresh traces. Many artists and photographers feel inspired by this side of winter.
A highlight of the exhibition are the vintage prints by Albert Steiner (1877-1965) from the Kaspar Fleischmann Collection, never shown publicly before and unmatched in their quality and uniqueness. Steiner is followed chronologically by winter pictures of important exponents of Swiss photography: Werner Bischof (1916-1954), René Burri (1933-2014), Arnold Odermatt (*1925), René Groebli (*1927) and Philipp Giegel (1927-1997) and the Swiss-French photographer Sabine Weiss (*1924), who lives in Paris.
These icons of Swiss photography are juxtaposed with more recent positions: for example, Douglas Mandry’s unique photographic specimens (photographic lithographs on a glacier cloth) or Sandro Diener’s landscapes (*1975).
The exhibition is rounded off with photographs by established Swiss photographers: Robert Bösch (*1954), Guido Baselgia (*1953), Daniel Schwartz (*1955) and Bernd Nicolaisen (*1959). They all know how to translate the breathtaking beauty and existential boundaries of alpine regions into exceptional photographs.
Silver Gelatin Print, 30 x 30 cm, Only one print available
© Philipp Giegel, Esther Woerdehoff Paris
BILDHALLE
2 Feb – 21 Feb 2019
Stauffacherquai 56
8004 Zürich
