Licht auf ... (Kirchner/Kuball)

Kirchner Museum, Davos, 2016–2017

In some of his works, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner shows an open interest in the role of light—and especially in the effect of figurative shadows. Figures and movements are flattened by the shadows, intensifying the impression of an auratic second figure that seems inherent to the first figure. This is also reflected in the photographic images, which on the one hand take up the motifs of his paintings, but on the other hand repeatedly set their own accents.

The project “Light on Kirchner” brings together excerpts from works by E.L. Kirchner that demonstrate this fundamental characteristic. These are condensed with the aid of a cinematic collage and projected onto a black reflective foil, thereby dissolving the subject of the painting and transforming it into a “pure” trail of light. This also applies to Kirchner's photographic approaches, which are selected from the collection's large collection of glass negatives.

The exhibition space features installations, paintings (from 1932–1937), and two different forms of photography—light and shadow experiments by Kirchner and shadow images and shadow projections by Kuball. In the central middle room, the images dissolve with the help of projection in favor of color and shadow reflections—a circular hole in the center reveals the shadow of the light on the outer exhibition wall. It combines the aspects of painting and photography with the spirit of an augmentative dissolution of the object.