Bogomir Ecker: Idylls and Disasters

A Photo Collection of the 19th and 20th Centuries and an Installation

Giacchino Altobelli, Felice Beato, Edward S. Curtis, Louis-Emile Durandelle, Bogomir Ecker, Homer & Lockwood, William Henry Jackson, Knud Knudsen, Charles Miller

For many years, the artist Bogomir Ecker has been collecting historic photographs with an unconventional, artistic eye: from 19th-century landscape photos from all over the world to classic 20th-century press and sensational photography from the USA. He uses the images not only directly for artistic work, but also as a source of inspiration for sculptures. A monumental sculpture by Ecker in the Kaisersaal of the Museum of Photography is the focal point around which photographs are presented, thematically grouped in idylls and disasters. The collection offers a look at images of technology, the experimental apparatus of science, and at idylls of nature, natural disasters, violence and destruction. They offer views of the monstrous quality of objects and of urban scenes of danger and subtle menace. The exhibition revives the series of installations by contemporary artists and photographers in the ruins of the Kaisersaal from 2004 to 2008.