Liquid Frontiers

The portrait of Erwin Wurm as a thoughtful man on a sofa represents a scene that can actually only take place in the location in a few months. The image anticipates the future and makes clear references to the melancholy colours of the interiors of an artist such as Edward Hopper. The picture also underlines that she is an artist for whom photography is primarily the art of making images.

Elfie Semotan (*1941)

Art and fashion were the two defining poles in the life and work of Elfie Semotan long before the combination was in vogue. Whether in international fashion campaigns or intimate portraits, the work of Elfie Semotan always focuses on the person in the image and upon what they are expressing. Yet, in place of expression and psychology, she uses complexity and contrast: it is precisely the artificial and ambivalent in which the authentic can be recognised or the episodic that contains the actual history or the formal elegance, which is finally revealed as contentually radical. Alongside her perfect craftsmanship, a further constant feature of her work is the subtle intelligence of her visual ideas – coupled with her faith in the ability of the viewer to appreciate them.