Andreas Kessler
Year of birth, place
1964
Germany
Role at the ZKM
- Artist of the Collection
Biography
Andreas Kessler was born in Stuttgart in 1964. He now lives in Kohlberg.
With the photographs he has produced since the mid-1980s, Kessler intends to 'bestow visibility on the invisible and the improbable'. He 'filters' perceived reality so as to achieve new insights into it. His use of multiple sources of illumination infuses his shots of people and architecture with a sense of space, movement and the multiplicity of points of view, on account of an artificially generated 'fuzziness'. Kessler has said of his work: 'In my photographs one object or person will be over-exposed, another will be almost swallowed up in shadow; and, between these two extremes, are those features of the subject that I capture. Here, light and shadow are mixed and something entirely new results. It is only through movement that the interplay of forms is apparent. It is, then, out of the given forms and movements that my photographs emerge. My images of architecture are often dominated by rhythm, lines and axes; one can also find examples of intrusion and superimposition and this gives rise to an architecture of light. In all of these pictures, the forms and movements occurring within a relatively long exposure time are merged into a sort of essence or utterly transported on to another (picture) plane. My photographs get closer to, and sustain each other, by that moment in our dreams when the laws of physics are suspended and time ceases to exist'.
Kessler feels that the best description of his activity as a photographer is that he 'plays with light', and that 'a game with light' would be the best designation for the results of his work.
Individual exhibitions (selection)
1987 Atelier Hannes Steinert, Stuttgart
1989 Kunstkabinett, Kirchheim/Teck
1992 Kunstverein, Ellwangen
1993 Kulturverein Zehntscheuer, Rottenburg/Neckar
Group exhibitions (selection)
1989 »Weitblick«, Marburger Universitätsmuseum für Bildende Kunst, Marburg
1990 »Fotoarbeiten: Wolfram Janzer, Andreas Kessler, Ginger Neumann, Valentin Wormbs«, Galerie in der Alten Post, Kunstverein Eislingen
1991 »Mai de la Photo«, Reims
1992 Galerie der Stadt Esslingen, Bahnwärterhaus, Esslingen
1993 Kreuzkirche, Nürtingen
1994 »FotoFuture«, Messe, Nuremberg
1996 »Sammlung der Stadt Esslingen«, Villa Merkel, Esslingen
[Konstanze Thümmel, 1997]
With the photographs he has produced since the mid-1980s, Kessler intends to 'bestow visibility on the invisible and the improbable'. He 'filters' perceived reality so as to achieve new insights into it. His use of multiple sources of illumination infuses his shots of people and architecture with a sense of space, movement and the multiplicity of points of view, on account of an artificially generated 'fuzziness'. Kessler has said of his work: 'In my photographs one object or person will be over-exposed, another will be almost swallowed up in shadow; and, between these two extremes, are those features of the subject that I capture. Here, light and shadow are mixed and something entirely new results. It is only through movement that the interplay of forms is apparent. It is, then, out of the given forms and movements that my photographs emerge. My images of architecture are often dominated by rhythm, lines and axes; one can also find examples of intrusion and superimposition and this gives rise to an architecture of light. In all of these pictures, the forms and movements occurring within a relatively long exposure time are merged into a sort of essence or utterly transported on to another (picture) plane. My photographs get closer to, and sustain each other, by that moment in our dreams when the laws of physics are suspended and time ceases to exist'.
Kessler feels that the best description of his activity as a photographer is that he 'plays with light', and that 'a game with light' would be the best designation for the results of his work.
Individual exhibitions (selection)
1987 Atelier Hannes Steinert, Stuttgart
1989 Kunstkabinett, Kirchheim/Teck
1992 Kunstverein, Ellwangen
1993 Kulturverein Zehntscheuer, Rottenburg/Neckar
Group exhibitions (selection)
1989 »Weitblick«, Marburger Universitätsmuseum für Bildende Kunst, Marburg
1990 »Fotoarbeiten: Wolfram Janzer, Andreas Kessler, Ginger Neumann, Valentin Wormbs«, Galerie in der Alten Post, Kunstverein Eislingen
1991 »Mai de la Photo«, Reims
1992 Galerie der Stadt Esslingen, Bahnwärterhaus, Esslingen
1993 Kreuzkirche, Nürtingen
1994 »FotoFuture«, Messe, Nuremberg
1996 »Sammlung der Stadt Esslingen«, Villa Merkel, Esslingen
[Konstanze Thümmel, 1997]