Thomas Kellner at AIPAD 2008 NYC
Apr 30th, 2008 by Brad
Another friend of ours, Thomas Kellner was at this years New York AIPAD. Thomas lives in Germany and shows his work internationally. In the past he has also had solo shows in Portland including the now-closed “Photographic Image Gallery”.
Thomas’s images are composed of strips of 35mm negatives and printed as a contact sheet. Each strip is painstaking planned and shot perfectly to build up the images. Thomas tilts and varies each frame which instills a kinetic vibrational energy to the scene. Take a look at the image “66#20 Mexico, Correos 1”. I really like this image which was also shown at AIPAD at the John Cleary booth.
Kellner himself cites the French Cubist Robert Delaunay for the initial inspiration that led him to his method (on the right see Robert Delaunay’s “Champs de Mars: The Red Tower.” 1911-1923. Oil on canvas. The Art Institute of Chicago.). Thomas creates a image by overlapping multiple images or perspectives of a scene has been likened to cubism and to the artist David Hockney, who created art by collaging multiple polaroids together. Kellner’s work are not collaged or placed but are taken as a linear sequence and these strips of images are laid out as rows to form the complete image. Thomas describes his images as “deconstructing architecture in a visual language.â€
I meet Thomas 2 years ago at Houston FotoFest 2006, I saw him at this year’s FotoFest but only had a few minutes to say hello due to hour schedules in Februrary. So it was great to take an hour and catch up with him at AIPAD. Thomas is keeping quite busy, and here are some of Thomas’s upcoming 2008 shows:
Dancing Walls, Galerie Maurer, Munich, Germany: May 8 – Jun 15.
Dancing Walls, Schneider Gallery, Chicago, USA: Sep 5 – Oct 21.
Dancing Walls, in focus Galerie, Burkhard Arnold, Cologne: Nov 8 – Dec 23.
Thomas just finished a show at K4 galerie, Saarbruecken: Apr 4 – Apr 30.
Thomas also published two new books. One book is called “Dancing Walls 2003 – 2006” with an introduction by Alison Nordstrom (Aperture). It is in an edition 1000 (half of the edition sold already), 29 Euros / 49 USD, plus shipping.
The other is called “All shook up – Thomas Kellner photographs the Boston Athenaeum”, with an illustrated essay by Richard Wendorf, 96 pages, 28x28cm, published by The Boston Athenaeum, 2008, edition 500. $20 USD, plus shipping. To order the book in Boston, contact: The Boston Athenaeum, Jim Feeney, Feeney[at]bostonathenaeum.org
