Matthieu Gafsou, Injection I, 2013

© Matthieu Gafsou, Courtesy Galerie C

22 JANUARY – 2 SEPTEMBER 2016

Life Is Not A Beach

Continuing its thematic exhibitions, the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung showed contemporary photographs and sculptures. Under the title Life Is Not A Beach, the exhibition focused on the darker sides of life.

One example of this is the oppressive world of drug addicts. Photographer Matthieu Gafsou documented this in his 30 photographs in an authentic, yet at the same time poetically attentive way. The 20 sculptures, the second focus of the exhibition, were made of the everyday yet multi-layered material glass as well as mixed media. Internationally known (Philip Baldwin & Monica Guggisberg, Mona Hatoum, Silvia Levenson, Janusz Walentynowicz and others) as well as young artists profoundly explored the general fears as well as the inner and outer conflicts of people in their different works.

 

Exhibition Venue
Villa
Karl-Theodor-Str. 27
80803 Munich

Directions

Matthieu Gafsou, Armando, 2013

© Matthieu Gafsou, Courtesy Galerie C

Photographs by Matthieu Gafsou

The photographs that the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung showed in Life Is Not A Beach were taken from the project Only God Can Judge Me by Swiss photographer Matthieu Gafsou. He photographed for over a year in the drug scene of Lausanne. Using a variety of formal approaches, he soberly yet sensitively documents the lives of addicts. His dignified portraits of long-time drug addicts with their drawn faces impressively personalize a social problem. With still lifes, he captures their contradictory habitat. Documentary-hard close-ups of drug packets, utensils, aseptic injection rooms, surveillance cameras and the like give an immediate impression of the daily struggle for existence of addicts. The poetic-looking photographs of nocturnal scenes of scene meeting places, on the other hand, allowed the viewer to glimpse the desirable side of intoxication.

With works by:

Philip Baldwin & Monica Guggisberg

Maria Lugossy

Aleš Vašícek

Janusz Walentynowicz

Mona Hatoum

Luke Jerram

Richard Meitner

Cassandra Straubing

Shige Fujishiro

Karen LaMonte

Donghai Guan

Silvia Levenson

Christiane Budig

Antoine Leperlier

Katharina Kleinfeld

Shima Koike

Luke Jerram, Ebola, 2015

Photo: Heller Gallery, New York

Sculptures With the Medium Glass and Mixed Media

The sculptures of international artists interpreted the theme of the exhibition in another material: they are made of glass as well as with mixed media. The material glass, familiar from everyday life, transforms in the hands of artists into a multi-layered, sometimes unexpected medium. Its complexity and the possibility of providing insights into different levels predestines the material glass in particular to vividly depict the darker sides of life.

The deep valley of depression was abstracted in the exhibition by a one-meter dark blue glass lake (Maria Lugossy) and addressed by a frozen sitting figure (Janusz Walentynowicz). The glass viruses of HIV and Ebola, visible to the core, addressed the fear of incurable diseases (Luke Jerram). A young fox in girl’s clothes drastically drove home the internal and external damage that children and young people can experience (Silvia Levenson). The desolation left by trying to solve problems with an addictive substance was vividly demonstrated by a 2.50-meter installation made of bottle halves (Mona Hatoum). The work of a Japanese artist (Shigenobu Fujishiro) drew attention to the problems of homeless people with an artfully caricatured Chanel shopping bag made of glass beads.