Herlinde Koelbl "Metamorphoses. Becoming – Fading Away – Emergence"

Herlinde Koelbl, who is arguably the most important portrait and people photographer of our time, has added a new, inspiring chapter to her extensive photographic oeuvre. For the first time, her project "Metamorphoses" does not show the human being itself, but reflects its existence in the essence of the ever-changing nature. Already her earlier series of politicians, whom Koelbl accompanied with her camera over decades, her ‘Jewish Portraits’, in which she recorded survivors of the Shoah, or her photographs of scientists are characterized by a deep interest in the flowing into each other of past and present as a state of permanent change. Just as the transformation of human beings through time, history and experience is reflected in the faces of the people she portrays, it now appears metaphorically in Koelbl's new photographs in a conglomeration of colorful images of nature. H2 - Center for Contemporary Art presents Herlinde Koelbl's 120 fascinating color photographs exclusively and for the first time in a large-scale show."In the long series of my projects, this is the first time that there are no people to be seen. However, one theme that runs through my work has remained, transience. Now my focus is on nature. In it, nothing remains as it is. Emergence, becoming and fading away. In the 'metamorphoses', all life themes are incorporated. They are the breaking points for transformation. In the fading away, nature allows a new beauty and a changed perception to emerge. It requires special attentiveness, a close look, to recognize this. Nature creates incredible forms, colors and structures. Everything transforms itself, becomes brittle, slackens or solidifies, and changes its state of aggregation. Colors alter in their intensity and scale of tonality. By emphasizing details, the artist creates his own pictorial compositions. A new level of reality and perception appears. The images become abstract; a state of suspension is achieved. A kind of visual archaeology that overlaps or even collides with the images or ideas we think we know. The present and the past flow into each other. And the future lies in reappearance." (Herlinde Koelbl, September 2022)