Christophe Guye Galerie is thrilled to announce an exhibition of works by Swiss photographer Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010, Switzerland) in Kabinet II of the gallery. Burkhard was an outstanding photographer who worked as both a documentary and artistic photographer from the 1960s onwards. After his training with Kurt Blum and his first commissions - for example as a documentary photographer for the Kunsthalle Bern under Harald Szeemann - he developed pioneering works such as the ‘Photocanvases’, in which photographs were exposed directly onto canvases. His work, which moves between photography, sculpture, object and painting, is characterised by clear, reduced black and white pictures.
A formative phase in Burkhardt's career was his time in the United States, particularly in Chicago. From 1976 to 1978, he combined his teaching activities as a guest lecturer at the University of Illinois with intensive artistic projects that reflected the urban pulse of the metropolis in his work. He developed innovative approaches that combined the clear reduction of his visual language with the documentary power of urban life. His large-format black and white pictures from this period capture not only architectural details, but also the dynamic movement and metropolitan rhythm. From this creative period, the gallery is showing ‚Backseat', 1977, one of Burkhard's most impressive pictures.
In the 1980s, the human body became the focus of his work, while at the same time he staged nature motifs, urban spaces, architectural projects and abstract compositions. His exploration of Asian aesthetics - inspired by Tanizaki, among others - led to intensively designed images of gardens, temples and cultural symbols. His artistic work was also characterised by his experimentation with different image carriers, such as the combination of black and white photographs with colour panels or the creation of huge series of flags.
Burkhard was widely recognised internationally: he had numerous solo and group exhibitions, including in Geneva, Chicago, Basel, Strasbourg, Los Angeles and Zurich. In his later years, he devoted himself increasingly to architectural photography and the depiction of timeless landscapes and urban moments that invited the viewer to contemplate them. The gallery is showing two monumental aerial photographs of Los Angeles from this period. These include an oversized format measuring 137 x 280 cm (54 x 110 1/4 in.). The exhibition ‘Scent of Desire’ (2009-10) in Kriens, Switzerland is considered one of his last major projects. His last colour photographs were shown in this exhibition, such as the work ‚Äpfel’ from 2007, which is also on display.
