Johannes Brus

Since the 1970s, Johannes Brus has concerned himself with the dialectic of the other and the self. His works confront the viewer with familiar trophies presented in an unfamiliar way so as to make them come alive and seize the imagination. Brus’s photographs cast all conventions to the wind, becoming monumental tableaus radiating an almost physical presence and charisma. The exhibition and catalogue address this central theme. The title can be translated both as “giving a motif” and as “making a picture as a trophy” or “exhibiting a picture as a trophy”. This critical engagement with the other, the wild, the exotic, can thus far be read as an inquiry into the conditions governing, and possibilities opened up by, the production, distribution and reception of art. Trophies are symbols of triumph, objects of prestige which, like those on show here, can be invested with a new meaning. Brus explores this appropriation and domestication of the wild in terms of both technique and content.