Tim Kellner

In 2008 Tim Kellner was the inaugural visiting research fellow at Sydney College of the Arts. During his time at SCA Kellner was hosted by the Photomedia studio and curated the exhibition Refusal of Reality. The exhibition was supported by the Goethe Institut and Exhibition Enterprise.

With this exhibition series and the corresponding catalogue, nine photographers (Katrin Amft; Marc Grummert; Tim Kellner; Thanh Long; Knut W. Maron; Janet Riedel; Heidi Schneekloth; Michael Strauss and; Janet Zeugner) develop a contemporary discourse about their media. Since 2005 several group exhibitions and linked solo shows throughout Germany and abroad refer to a dynamic and vivid photography art scene in Germany.

The project created a bridge from the beginnings of radical positions in the context of European contemporary art in the 1920's, via the attitudes of the particular German issue of "subjective photography" in the 1950s, to today.

The ensuing discussion is part of the current European discourse surrounding the photographic medium - it opposes the documentary and realistic representation with a more metaphorical, visionary, poetic and subjective approach to contemporary photography.

Located in close relation to the basic idea of "subjective photography", the work itself both enriches and extends this original concept by technical innovations, such as colour and digital technology, and thus broadens the fusion of different concepts of both painting and photography.

Refusal of Reality opened at Sydney College of the Arts Gallery on Tuesday 9 September 2008 and closed Saturday 4 October 2008.


Image: Tim Kellner, Self Portrait