ASPECTS OF DANISH PHOTOGRAPHY offers German viewers a fascinating glimpse into the world of Lars Schwander’s private collection.

As the title of the exhibition indicates, private collections generally focus on special areas and interests. As collector, Lars Schwander seeks a free and expressive photographic idiom which at the same time captures the momentariness of the photographic image. The exhibition shows photographs by Danish photographers selected from a total of about 4,000 photographs which Lars Schwander has collected in recent decades.

Danish photography is undergoing a dynamic development. More and more Danish photographers are attaining recognition, such as Astrid Kruse Jensen (Paris Photo 2006) or Trine Søndergaard and Nicolai Howalt (Prix BMW/Paris Photo, Søndergaard also received the Albert Renger-Patzsch Award). Ebbe Stub Wittrup and Jens Brink Pedersen have both been included in the volume "Places to Go, People to See", and the Danish-French concept artist Colonel is known in Germany through his solo exhibit in the Sprengel Museum Hannover (2002/2003). That photographic art is held in rather low esteem in the photographers’ own country has not impaired the dynamics of artistic creativity – on the contrary, many artists seek an international context, like Søren Lose, who is currently living and working in Berlin.

Lars Schwander, born in 1957, is the director of the Photographic Centre in Copenhagen and a member of AICA (International Association of Art Critics) and the board of the Finland Institute in Denmark. He is also a member of the artistic advisory board of the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg and worked for several years at the Louisiana Museum for Modern Art. Recently he served as member of the jury of the Prix BMW at the Paris Photo exhibition. As photographer and author, Schwander is represented in many books including "Yes – Yoko Ono" (Abrams, New York 2000) and "Lars von Trier Interviews" (University Press of Mississippi, 2003). At present he is on view in a U.S. travelling exhibition of Scandinavian photography and is editor of a book on Manuel Alvarez Bravo which will be published in the spring. In the exhibition "Aspects of Danish Photography" he is represented with his portraits of the German artists Martin Kippenberger and Günter Förg.

Link: www.photography.dk