Lothar Baumgarten

Between 1968 and 1970, Lothar Baumgarten undertook a systematic photographic study of how several European ethnographic museums frame the viewer’s perception through the manner in which their objects are displayed.

The work of the internationally renowned artist has focused since the late 1960s on themes such as the oppositions of culture / nature and self / other. Like previous shows of Baumgarten’s work, his exhibition titled “River Crossing” at Galerie Thomas Zander (13 November 2010 – 19 February 2011) is to be regarded in its totality as a work in situ. The canon behind its presentation and the dimension of its thematic circuit counterbalance one another. Measure and proportion, materiality and ratio, light, colour and time are the elements determining our perception of the exhibit. Freed from cultural contexts, its universal appearance, identity, and presence are formulated by means of its intellectual and personal poetics…

Installation View

"My work is not a question of strategy or mode of opinion. Rather it is based on principles, guided by intuition. Measurement and proportion are the instruments of my thought and, a grammar which reflects the elementary spatial relationships and a rational sense of timing and emphasis are fundamental to my artistic practice…"

There I Like It Better Than In Westphalia, El Dorado