Surfaces – New Photography from Switzerland

One element of contemporary photography is a concern for surfaces and the investigation of their supposed smoothness and impenetrability. Swiss photography classes at the Zurich University of the Arts, the ECAL in Lausanne, or HEAD in Geneva have trained a number of artists who, in addition to exploring questions of content, have primarily addressed issues specific to the medium. Have new developments in photography been made due to the digital turn? How is our relationship to the tangible object changing, when photographs are no longer shown in photo albums but as files on screens? From an artistic perspective, does this lead to any conclusions for the future production of works of art? These and other questions were explored in Surfaces, an exhibition of works from the collection of Fotomuseum Winterthur, which includes a dozen current Swiss photographic positions, such as works by Stefan Burger, collectif_fact, Cédric Eisenring/Thomas Julier, Matthias Gabi, Dominique Koch, Adrien Missika, Shirana Shahbazi, and Herbert Weber.