Selected Articles (abbridged)
The Globe and Mail, Toronto - 04.05.02, Russel Smith - Pictures tell a tale of two cities
An exhibition of new photography at a Toronto gallery looks at cities as haunted empty spaces. […] The show is at the Goethe Institute, the German government organization that promotes German culture worldwide […]. The work is by two photographers: a Canadian (Robin Collyer), who was sent to photograph Berlin, a city he didn’t know; and a German (Gosbert Adler), who was sent to photograph Toronto, a city he didn’t know. The results are startlingly similar: Both photographers shoot urban or suburban scenes with no trace of people in them.
The Toronto Star, Toronto - 14.03.02, Peter Goddard - The Art of words. German artist adds meaning to Biblical text (über Wenzel Zierschs Scripted Images)
The Goethe-Institut’s street-front windows mirror the traffic pounding down University Ave. and across King St. W. in fractured, frantic images […].
But a look through the windows into the German cultural centre reveals an austere vertical panel on the far wall, lots of dark grey flowing into black. Maybe it’s just another abstract, you might think.
It’s anything but. A much closer look makes clear what the panel is about: devotion and obsession.
NOW, Toronto – 28.03.02, Sascha Hastings - God’s gift (über Wenzel Zierschs Scripted Images)
What would it be like to get a handwritten letter from God?
For an experience as close as you’ll get on this side of the beyond, check out the Wenzel Ziersch show at the Goethe Institut.
The Globe and Mail, Toronto – 06.07.02, Russel Smith - I was the willing victim of a propaganda coup
In Frankfurt, I discussed the merits of museum design with the curator of the contemporary art gallery there. In Kassel, […] at the international Documenta show, […] over a beer with the Nigerian-born curator I argued about academic language and accessibility.
In Berlin, I was given tours of national galleries and local artists’ centres by unfailingly articulate, massively educated, internationally minded Germans. I have spent two weeks in a kind of thinker’s paradise, a place in which the society supports what society should support to make it better.
It’s called propaganda. And it works. These tours are being organized and paid for all year long by […] the venerable Goethe Institute […].
What does Germany get out of such largesse? Well, they get some of the best and most challenging young artists in the world to come to Berlin and fertilize their city, and by extension their country. And they also gain a reputation, in the countries those artists come from, as being a cultural powerhouse […].
Eye Weekly, Toronto – 12.12.02, Edward Keenan - How Swede it is. Stereotypes thrive in official culture (über Gustáv Hámos’ und Katja Pratschkes Ausstellung Transposed Bodies)
Transposed Bodies is interesting both for its story in all sorts of ways, and for the questions it raises about the problems of human identity in an increasingly scientific society.
The very setting of the Goethe Institut adds to the effect. The German language and cultural centre is in a gorgeous building of granite and contoured metal at King and University, and the curved walls of the gallery add a physical dimension to the narrative’s unexpected turns.
An exhibition of new photography at a Toronto gallery looks at cities as haunted empty spaces. […] The show is at the Goethe Institute, the German government organization that promotes German culture worldwide […]. The work is by two photographers: a Canadian (Robin Collyer), who was sent to photograph Berlin, a city he didn’t know; and a German (Gosbert Adler), who was sent to photograph Toronto, a city he didn’t know. The results are startlingly similar: Both photographers shoot urban or suburban scenes with no trace of people in them.
The Toronto Star, Toronto - 14.03.02, Peter Goddard - The Art of words. German artist adds meaning to Biblical text (über Wenzel Zierschs Scripted Images)
The Goethe-Institut’s street-front windows mirror the traffic pounding down University Ave. and across King St. W. in fractured, frantic images […].
But a look through the windows into the German cultural centre reveals an austere vertical panel on the far wall, lots of dark grey flowing into black. Maybe it’s just another abstract, you might think.
It’s anything but. A much closer look makes clear what the panel is about: devotion and obsession.
NOW, Toronto – 28.03.02, Sascha Hastings - God’s gift (über Wenzel Zierschs Scripted Images)
What would it be like to get a handwritten letter from God?
For an experience as close as you’ll get on this side of the beyond, check out the Wenzel Ziersch show at the Goethe Institut.
The Globe and Mail, Toronto – 06.07.02, Russel Smith - I was the willing victim of a propaganda coup
In Frankfurt, I discussed the merits of museum design with the curator of the contemporary art gallery there. In Kassel, […] at the international Documenta show, […] over a beer with the Nigerian-born curator I argued about academic language and accessibility.
In Berlin, I was given tours of national galleries and local artists’ centres by unfailingly articulate, massively educated, internationally minded Germans. I have spent two weeks in a kind of thinker’s paradise, a place in which the society supports what society should support to make it better.
It’s called propaganda. And it works. These tours are being organized and paid for all year long by […] the venerable Goethe Institute […].
What does Germany get out of such largesse? Well, they get some of the best and most challenging young artists in the world to come to Berlin and fertilize their city, and by extension their country. And they also gain a reputation, in the countries those artists come from, as being a cultural powerhouse […].
Eye Weekly, Toronto – 12.12.02, Edward Keenan - How Swede it is. Stereotypes thrive in official culture (über Gustáv Hámos’ und Katja Pratschkes Ausstellung Transposed Bodies)
Transposed Bodies is interesting both for its story in all sorts of ways, and for the questions it raises about the problems of human identity in an increasingly scientific society.
The very setting of the Goethe Institut adds to the effect. The German language and cultural centre is in a gorgeous building of granite and contoured metal at King and University, and the curved walls of the gallery add a physical dimension to the narrative’s unexpected turns.
