Rosy Beyel-schmidt’s large-format black-and-white photographs resist superficial, quick interpretation. On the contrary, they require intensive viewing and searching for the subject of the image. Only after prolonged viewing and concentrated visual effort do contours emerge from the predominantly dark and light areas, revealing fragments of bodies or objects. In the process of progressive perception, the viewer also discovers a spatial depth created by the superimposition, overlap and layering of the elements, which nevertheless does not combine to form a uniform spatial continuum.

Any attempt to connect the enigmatic image structures with a reality outside the image fails. Instead, the multi-layered relationships between the recognisable fragments of reality, combined with other, seemingly abstract formations, open up spaces of association for the viewer that address their inner reality. The photographs thus function as triggers for an encounter with one’s own past. Their fragmentary character sets in motion a process of remembrance that, ideally, brings repressed memories to the surface, but in any case makes one aware of the nature of memory.” Bettina Ruhrberg

Curator: Andrea Hofmann