Elina Brotherus: In reference to a sunny place

She changes roles and perspectives, plays with relationships in the creative process and opens ever new doors between photography and other visual arts with palpable delight. The Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF) honours the Finnish artist Elina Brotherus with the comprehensive survey show IN REFERENCE TO A SUNNY PLACE.

On display are central themes and works from the past 20 years. In various image series and video works, Brotherus repeatedly deals with the diverse connections between model, artist and viewer, between man and woman, figure and place, as well as with the genres of portraiture and the nude. With her typically strange and ironic self-staging, she explores emotions and tensions: being alone and being together, being lost and being safe, love, sadness, yearning, and more often joyfulness.

Often it is her examination of various art movements from Romanticism to Fluxus that inspires her. References to the German painter Caspar David Friedrich, for example, can be found in her group of works The Wanderer, while the video work The Wish Tree refers to the multimedia artist Yoko Ono. Also at the FFF on show is i.a. the series Sebaldiana. Memento Mori, Brotherus’ preoccupation with the German literary figure W.G. Sebald and her mother Ulla Brotherus’ short life as an artist. A book publication by Elina Brotherus on this series will be self-published in summer 2022.

Elina Brotherus, born in Helsinki, Master degrees in photography and chemistry, is an early protagonist of an experimental group of young visual artists i.a. at the University of Art and Design Helsinki (now Aalto University) in the 1990s, later dubbed The Helsinki School. Brotherus, living both in Finland and France, is considered one of the most important contemporary photo artists in Europe. Her work has been exhibited internationally since 1997, is widely published and awarded and can be found in renowned museums and other collections.

ELINA BROTHERUS. IN REFERENCE TO A SUNNY PLACE is supported by the Feith Foundation, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and the Women‘s Department of the City of Frankfurt.

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FOTOGRAFIE FORUM FRANKFURT

The Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF) is one of the leading centres of photography in Europe.As an exhibition space, institution and event forum the FFF deals with all aspects of photography. Since its founding in 1984 it has presented more than 260 exhibitions with historic andcontemporary artists. Additionally, the program of the FFF ACADEMY comprises ofregular workshops, talks and discussions with internationally renownedphotographers, artists and experts. Further information available at www.fffrankfur t.org

Fotografie Forum Frankfurt issupported by Förderkreis FotografieForum Frankfurt e.V., Stadt Frankfurt am Main, FUJIFILM ElectronicImaging Europe and Hauck, Aufhäuser, Lampe

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