#296, untitled FineArt print Hahnemühle PhotoRag Baryta Photograph - Limited Edition of 6

This piece with the work series number #296 Ed.2/6 has been created in 2018 for our large Bauhaus exhibition in Jena on the occasion of the Germany-wide celebrations of the Bauhaus 100th anniversary in 2019. It was hung in the context of this solo exhibition of more than 90 works by OSTER+KOEZLE on nearly 700 m². A high-resolution digital photograph of a room element in the so-called Eiermannbau, the former fire extinguisher factory in Apolda, served as basis. Architect Egon Eiermann was in the direct wake of the Bauhaus movement and designed a number of iconic buildings in Germany between 1930 and the 1960s, including the reconstruction of the Memorial Church in Berlin after World War II. OSTER+KOEZLE have been working together for more than 24 years. They search for suitable places to take pictures of rooms. Painterly or sculptural, they never interfere with the spaces; the light is always that prevailing on site. Later, the motifs are digitally processed and printed on FineArt cardboard. O+K's artifactual interventions always consist of solid homogeneous color areas, which, at the latest upon closer inspection, clearly stand out from the real-image portions contained in the work. The cutouts in this so-called 'mask' partly follow the lines in the photo, partly they are freely drawn. This leads to an irritation (which is also intentional), because we automatically interpret the color surface as a background, which gives the visible photographic elements a sculptural character. All this is done exclusively with digital image processing tools. It is never collage or painting. The underlying photographic image always remains uncut and preserved in its proportions. As a rule, the images contain a secret that irritates, arouses curiosity, and stimulates the viewer's imagination - in addition to a claim to aesthetic perfection that is taken for granted.