Oog in Oog (Eye to Eye)

8 June 2005

OOG IN OOG (EYE TO EYE)
Photographic collection of the Groninger Museum

17 September – 4 December 2005

The Groninger Museum has an extensive and unique collection of photographs. A selection of these will be on display in the autumn of this year, from 17 September to 4 December. Work by important photographers from both home and abroad will be on show.

Since the 1986 exhibition Fotografia Buffa; Staged Photography in the Netherlands, the Groninger Museum has regularly exhibited and purchased photographic work. The Museum consistently placed its own emphasis on these events. In addition to the staged photography, the last two decades have witnessed presentations of advertising, fashion and glamour photography. This resulted in exhibitions of work by Dutch photographers who have now become world renowned, such as Anton Corbijn and the duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. Another line in the collection is formed by the work of a number of American photographers who are primarily concerned with the fringes of society, such as Andres Serrano and Larry Clark, whose provocative exhibitions in Groningen in respectively 1997 and 1999 are still fresh in many people’s memories.

Besides the photographers mentioned, a number of others also occupy a crucial position in the collection, such as Teun Hocks with his melancholy stagings that always have a double meaning; the razor-sharp exuberant photography by Erwin Olaf; and the very internationally oriented work of the young fashion and portrait photographers Anuschka Blommers and Niels Schumm. The pioneering work in computer graphics and photo-manipulation  with which Micha Klein has been busy for years will certainly be on display in this exhibition, as will be the erotic photographs of Cornelie Tollens and the advertising work of Carli Hermès. Many of the photographs referred to have been printed in an extremely large format, which occasionally leads to an almost physical confrontation.
 
Furthermore, the exhibition will present photographs by people who can be regarded as the precursors of a number of the present-day photographers, such as the celebrity photographers Angus McBean and Paul Huf, and the more socially engaged Diane Arbus. Due to the fact that people are prominent in the majority of the photographs in the Groninger Museum’s collection, the decision has been made to lay the emphasis on portraits and (staged) self-portraits. Thus, the exhibition also presents visual artists who appear in their own work by means of photography, such as Gilbert & George, Ulay/Abramovic, Luigi Ontani, and Milan Kunc.

Noorderlicht Photographic Manifestation 2005
This autumn, from 4 September to 9 October 2005, the annual Noorderlicht Photographic Manifestation will again be held in Groningen. The central theme of the exhibition will be Traces & Omens. In work by thirty photographers from both home and abroad, attention is devoted to the way in which the concept of time is dealt with in this medium.
For addition information, please see: www.noorderlicht.com

Note for the editor
Compilation of the exhibition in the Groninger Museum: Mark Wilson and Ruud Schenk
For additional information, please contact: Josee Selbach, jselbach@groningermuseum.nl, +31 (0)50-3666555,
www.groningermuseum.nl
Hours of opening: Tuesday to Sunday and on public holidays, from 10.00-17.00. Also open on Mondays in July and August, from 13.00-17.00. Closed on 25 December and 1 January.

Photocredits: Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodth Matadin, Jade and Victoria, 1996