12.06. – 17.10.2021
Curated by Kerstin Stremmel, Andrea Lehner-Hagwood, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg presents a photo collection from the Skrein Collection in a narrative way.
The Skrein Collection has played a pioneering role in preserving and presenting amateur photography, but it also boasts outstanding fine art and documentary photographs. Two touchstones help set it apart from other collections: the collector’s enthusiasm for superb composition and his fascination with the human condition. The pursuit of these two criteria implies a privilege and a challenge: his interests cover a wide spectrum, from the nineteenth century to a focus on the 1920s and 1930s and on to the more recent past. Themes such as reportage photography—a preoccupation with roots in Christian Skrein’s own photographic practice—are hallmarks of the collector’s scope, as is his penchant for curiosities. The exhibition and publication sift through this storehouse of treasures by telling stories: only then do the heterogeneous pictures—whose aspiration to superior quality is evident throughout—speak to the collector’s approach. Key concepts with manifold associations serve to structure the abundance. Among them are photographic metaphors that can act as lenses on central questions in the history of photography.
Tell Me What You See. Skrein Photo Collection
12.06. – 17.10.2021
Museum der Moderne Salzburg
Mönchsberg 32
5020 Salzburg
www.museumdermoderne.at
