Georg Brückmann

Superego (after Freud), 2024 (selection)

Blank, Fine Art Print, framed, 55 x 75 cm

Installation views Galerie Kleindienst - Westside, Leipzig

According to Sigmund Freud, the superego is one of the three agencies of the human psyche. In my photographic series, I stage myself in a kind of hall of mirrors reminiscent of Freud's study with its armchair and couch. I reconstructed parts of this room from his London exile in my studio and completely covered them in mirrors. The mirrored design takes up the themes of mirroring, reflection, and self-reflection in the Freudian sense.

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The photographs show both distorted and clear images of myself and my studio. Each shot captures the mirrored corner of the room from different angles. Using both formal and technical means, the work addresses psychoanalysis with its agencies of the id, ego, and super-ego, as well as the psyche itself, relating both to the process of artistic creation. According to popular belief, the driven artist treats himself through the creation of art. In my work, the psychoanalytic therapy room is the art object itself.

The mirrors create a kind of double image that always includes the opposite side of the room—i.e., my studio—as well as myself. The blurred, wavy, and irregular surfaces reflect the surroundings and myself in a distorted, curved, or alienated way, creating a chaotic impression.

A symbol for what Freud called the "dark, inaccessible part of our personality ... We approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations."

Bro, Fine Art Print, framed, 55 x 75 cm

Doppel, Fine Art Print, framed, 55 x 75 cm

EGO, Fine Art Print, framed, 105 x 140 cm

Opposite, Fine Art Print, framed, 105 x 140 cm

Id, Ego, and Super-Ego, Fine Art Print, framed, 55 x 75 cm

MacGuffin, 2020–present

For the work MacGuffin I reconstruct scenery from Alfred Hitchcock films. The reconstructed settings are photographed in fine detail.
The term MacGuffin is attributed to Hitchcock and stands for more or less arbitrary objects or people that trigger or advance the plot in a film.

Pitchblende from the broken wine bottle in „Notorious“

The color red in „Marnie“

The lighter with the initials in „Strangers on a Train“

Lens disassembly, 2019

For the twelve-part work Lens Disassembly, I documented photographically how I disassemble the lens used for the documentation piece by piece. The first unexposed photo is still taken with the lens cap on. Bit by bit, disassembled components of the lens can be seen. Since in the further course the lens system was also disassembled, focal length and sharpness change and more and more aberrations appear. Finally, the iris diaphragm has been removed and the photo is overexposed.

Bauhaus Dessau, 2019 (selection)

Museum for Photography, Braunschweig

Opening day, Fine Art Print, 110 x 145 cm

Main building (NS), Fine Art Print, 110 x 145 cm

Prellerhaus, Fine Art Print, 110 x 145 cm

Moholy Nagy, Fine Art Print, 110 x 145 cm

Gropius 01, Fine Art Print, 110 x 145 cm

Gropius 02, Fine Art Print, 110 x 145 cm

Hannes Meyer with students on canteen terrace, Fine Art Print, 110 x 145 cm

The Bauhaus weavers, Fine Art Print, 110 x 145 cm

Otti-Berger, Fine Art Print, 110 x 145 cm

Size comparison and ratio, 2018

The five-part work is based on a photographed installation consisting of two prints hung side by side: a photograph of a chair and a photograph of a pencil sharpener.

The starting point is a print of the chair at a scale of 1:1 and a print of the pencil sharpener at a scale of 16:1. Both photographs are installed and photographed together in the space.
For each subsequent shot, the entire setting is systematically halved: the edge lengths of the prints, the camera height, and the distance to the installation. This process is repeated over four reduction steps.

The photographic result remains geometrically unchanged. In all five images of the series, the two motifs appear in the exact same size ratio to each other and within an identical image section. No proportion shifts.
The serial construction only becomes visible on a material level: With each reduction, the surface structures of the wall and floor change, and the photographic paper of the shrinking prints reacts differently in physical terms. Only these material differences reveal that these are not identical prints of the same image.

5 Fine Art Prints, each 50 x 50 cm

The great fireplace room I-III, 2014, 2015, 2016

Fine art print in a wooden frame, 97 x 120 cm

Download PDF (0,6 MB): The great fireplace room - an analysis with details (Webansicht)

Fine art print in a wooden frame, 97 x 120 cm

Fine art print in a wooden frame, 97 x 120 cm

Kundmanngasse 19, 2015

In 1925 Margaret Stonborough Wittgenstein commissioned the architect Paul Engelmann to construct a representative urban mansion in Vienna. In 1926 her brother, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, became involved in the design process and assumed responsibility for most of the planning.
After almost four years of construction, in late 1928 Margaret, her family and numerous servants took up residency in Haus Wittgenstein. Virtually every major and minor figure of the Viennese cultural scene at the time were guests of hers at some point. With the exception of a 7-year exile in the United States, Margaret would live in Haus Wittgenstein until her death in 1958. Ludwig Wittgenstein planned the construction of the house between the composition of his two main philosophical works, the theories of which are unmistakeably recognizable in the architecture.
The Haus Wittgenstein is in this sense an architectural manifestation of his philosophy.

Haus der Photographie Deichtorhallen, Hamburg

Kundmanngasse 19 - Halle, glass framed fine art print, 105 x 140 cm

Kundmanngasse 19 - Saal I, glass framed fine art print, 105 x 140 cm

Kundmanngasse 19 - Bibliothek, glass framed fine art print, 105 x 140 cm

Kundmanngasse 19 - Speisezimmer, glass framed fine art print, 105 x 140 cm

Kundmanngasse 19 - Saal II, glass framed fine art print, 105 x 140 cm

Kundmanngasse 19 - Wohnzimmer, glass framed fine art print, 105 x 140 cm

Kundmanngasse 19 - Palais Südseite, glass framed fine art print, 105 x 140 cm

256 kB.jpg hexadecimal of itself, 2014

256 kB.jpg hexadecimal of itself, inkjet print, 61 x 82 cm

Detail

The image and his ideational object, 2013/2014 (selection)

Installation views, E-Werk, Freiburg

According to Plato's "theory of Forms", everything material that we perceive is only the image of a "higher", metaphysical idea. We cannot grasp this original state of all things with our senses. We perceive the world as it is NOT, but perhaps could be. We therefore do not perceive the world as it is, but see images of the "things in themselves" in different states.

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In the series "The image and his ideational object" this Platonic assumption is played with by depicting a series of images within one picture. On the one hand, the photographic image is an indexical representation of the extra-image reality; on the other hand, the object depicted in the image is already itself authored as an image, namely as it appears on the wall, in the catalog, or on the monitor. Moreover, the depicted objects are partly in different states of transience or are replaced by other objects. In the picture "Fruit Bowl" the object, the fruit, finally dissolves and is completely replaced by cubes and by its own image.

In the series, in addition to this epistemological reference, there is also a photo-analytical one. Thus, various photographic parameters such as time, color, perspective and image ratio, by means of which one can orient oneself and experience space, are examined.
Some images are inscribed, for example, with an explicitly depicted duration of time, false perspective, or the shifted relationship of quantities. These perceptual breaks can be read as clues to the production process of the images. If the construction of a still life with rose and the subsequent work of reproduction with cubes and many photographs, the time that has passed in the process is inscribed in the work: the rose seems to be in bloom, but it is already withered.

Fine art print on dibond behind acrylic glass, 30 x 40 cm

Fine art print on dibond behind acrylic glass, 30 x 35 cm

Fine art print on dibond behind acrylic glass, 30 x 25,5 cm

Glass framed fine art print, 70 x 80 cm

Panhorama, 2012

„Panhorama“ is a printed matter and an exhibition concept with 45 photographs that simultaneously act as advertising and text-accompanying photos in a fictitious newspaper.

Download PDF (4MB): PANHORAMA (Web view)

Installation view Gallery Queen Anne, Leipzig

Cloud, 2012

The work „Cloud“ is an abstract representation of self-similarities within cloud structures. The image dissolves into increasingly minute details that show the same picture or parts of the same cloud over and over again.

C-Print, behind glass, 200 x 200 cm

Detail

World, 2012

In cartography a map projection is the representation of a three-dimensional sphere (for example, the Earth) on a two-dimensional surface, which is referred to as a coordinate reference system. The representation of a sphere on a two-dimensional surface is also often simply called a projection.

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Depending on the angle to the pre-defined equatorial line, in the projection the poles are distorted outwards. The work World presents a coordinate system, the reference for which is a 30-centimeter high, inflatable model of the earth. The 648 photographs of the three-dimensional globe were taken in gradations of 10 degrees and arranged in 36 columns and 18 rows. In the photographic representation of a sphere, the surface that is nearest to the lens always appears largest. As one moves towards the edges of the projection, the smaller the surfaces portrayed become relative to the sphere itself. As a result, the surface photographed in 10-degree increments is always the largest and most visible. What emerges is a cartographic image of the Earth. Due to the lines of longitude running through Poland the pole regions are distorted. This method of depicting the earth on a two-dimensional surface is the most common form of projection and is referred to as the Mercator projection system.

C-Print on Dibond behind acrylic glass, 100 x 200 cm

Detail

Tree, 2011

Installation view, c-prints, framed, each 150 x 65 cm

You can see a tree, divided into its units, defined by orders. Starting with the trunk, in first order on the first picture, the branches follow in second, third and fourth order on the next pictures. In the fifth picture, the leaves are in fifth order. Branches and leaves are arranged schematically as a model illustration of the tree, the scale of all units is 1:2.
The work shows the fractal structure of the tree. From the trunk, its branches and each additional branch five units of the following following order. In this case the tree is a small maple of three meters height, which is structured in five orders. This results in a function over which the number of units in the consecutive orders is the respective power of their ordinal number to the number five. Starting with ordinal number 0, this tree thus has five to the power of four = 625 leaves.

in situ, 2009

Installation view Gallery Quartier, Leipzig

Installation view Deichtorhallen, Hamburg

Archaeology on site is all about reinstating objects in their present condition to something of their potential, even of their aspirations originally revealed in the archaic context. What was simply in existence until the present-day can now become tangible with the full impact of its different layers. The technical term for this is "in situ".

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The objects in their current form are given back something of their possibilities, even wishes, which they reveal solely in their original context; this is the concern of an archaeology on site. What was hitherto simply present can now become tangible in its grown stratification.
In situ is the technical term for this, which almost implies a concept in itself.

The three parts of the diploma exhibition - the book "Gaden", the studies and the framed photographs - were held together by the attempt to make visible what is enclosed in ordinary perception, what is always transported along unthematically. It is about a specific artistic skill, namely being able to recognise contingency in form and thus the possibility of the difference and change of objects as well as their development. Two levels are separated from each other and thus can be related to each other: cube and sphere, painting and photography, my studio and Walter Gropius' office, Bauhaus ideology and garden chair aesthetics, the object and its ideal counter-image, its wish, its dream. Just as the place and spot from which the objects are viewed determine our expectations, they are also constituted by the spatial position of the things and the situation to which they owe their origin. These are the two original places that are embedded like layers in the things and between them. Perspective and context; they move the play of perception, bring it into form.

By way of example, one could say that a plastic chair and its character is and remains what it is: a chair made of plastic. Or plastic. Unless the pictorial object, which a moment ago was a practical seat or a zebra crossing, is now placed in an unexpected context which, despite all the superimposition, remains closely connected to it. Or a step towards it changes its image. If I were old-fashioned, I could perhaps still speak of "archetypes". And it is precisely this moment of coming together or even collision, of layered reference, that is the nodal point at which the image of the object threatens to turn, to topple over, expectation is disappointed and experience begins. The possibility of recognising randomness necessarily opens up opportunities. Here the object becomes what it could have become, what it could be, what it wanted to be, or even what it should be.

Barcelona Chair, C-Print, 90 x 122 cm

Eames Lounge Chair, C-Print, 90 x 122 cm

Detail

Gropius Sessel, C-Print, 90 x 122 cm

Isokon, C-Print, 90 x 122 cm

Detail

LC 4, C-Print, 90 x 122 cm

1000 light measurements in lux of a burning candle in front of a white wall, taken with a Gossen Multisix light meter, 2009

The image entitled „1000 photometric measurements in lux of a burning candle before a white wall taken with a Gossen Multisix exposure meter“ measures 84 x 65 centimetres. The surface is a white wall and the adjoining floor, upon which a burning candle stands. The 1000 numerical exposure values shown on part of the device’s display were scanned in their original size, arranged and printed. The sections of the display correspond in size and arrangement to the surfaces that were measured on the wall and floor. When viewing the image from a greater distance, different shades of grey emerge due to the relation of the black and grey components of the different numerals.

Dibond behind arcylic glass, 65 x 84 cm

Detail

Apple ≠ Apple, 2009

In the recognition process, which transforms the representations contained in pictures of substituted objects – the concepts – back into (virtual) objects, different reference sizes come into play. In addition to similarities in form and color to the pictorial correlate, which refers as a signifying concept (significate) to the material form (signifier), contextual embedding is of great importance both in terms of the content of the image and of reception aesthetics.

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We unequivocally recognize the representation of an apple as such if the portrayal of its material form, that is of the real thing, is more or less optically similar. Yet the similarity of the portrayed and real object can be great or small, depending on the level at which the reception takes place and the frame of reference. If the representation is a focused, high-resolution photo of a well lighted, healthy apple, the connection to its material equivalent will be simple. It is, however, initially more difficult to identify red dots on a white background as representations of apples. If one were to draw a face around these dots one would tend to see them as freckles. If curvy lines were to be drawn over them they could be seen as punctuation marks. Yet if we were to add green leaves and branches to the surface, the dots would certainly represent apples (or maybe cherries, so long as a cherry tree doesn’t happen to be clearly visible somewhere nearby). Thus the things that we think we see find their substantial correspondence through explication, also in relation to the things around them, which serve as objects of comparison.

This comparison can be helpful with identically portrayed simulacra as well, provided that that which is portrayed does not generally appear in isolation or if it describes the plural form and the identification emerges from the repetition of the individual object, for example cows in a herd or the three dots at the end of this sentence, which …
The hermeneutic aptitude of recognizing representations and their sensory connections can be described as the intelligence of the eye, which is to be distinguished from cognitive processes. This intelligence convinces us that the portrayal of the apple represents an apple and that of a pipe a pipe (without necessarily being one or the other). Additional correlates, such as the scale, provide information about other properties of things that are not perceived by the senses, for example weight and the associated position within the Earth’s gravitational system.
One sees that the apple is equivalent to an apple and believes that it is not equivalent to an apple (but rather, perhaps, to epoxy resin). One sees that it is not equivalent to 256 grams and thinks that it is equivalent to 256 grams (and is worth, perhaps, 69 cents). These opposing equivalencies are reflected semiotically in the form of apples and weights and semantically in the form of the formulas “apple = epoxy resin” and “apple ≠ 256 grams”. In their pictorial and punctuational combination they form an inverse, cross-over correspondence between one image and another and – within the images themselves – between the “intelligent eye” and cognitive recognition.

Apple = epoxy resin / Apple ≠ 256 Gramm, C-Prints on Dibond, 34 x 29 cm

Gaden, 2009

Gaden, 4/4 Euroskala Offset, 56 Pages, 29 x 23 cm, Layout: René Siegfried

In the discipline of architecture a one-room house or a single room is referred to in German as “Gaden”.

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Ideally, when viewing the book GADEN, one is guided through a story/ dramaturgy created by breaks, repetitions and loops (intended feeling of feedback through the same sequence of similar images). Because the book format does not allow one to view many pictures simultaneously, the viewer is meant to look for the said correspondences and similarities, thus receiving non-linearly. If a certain lack of hold sets in from flipping back and forth, this feeling is supposed to be reinforced by the content of the images. Reminiscent of van Gogh's painting "Vincent's Bedroom in Arles" and Egon Schiele's quotation of it, I see the painted room as my own living space, so to speak. Even if it is not a copy of my past or present living situation, the possibility of my own interior is reflected in the pictures. Not least also something like a contemporary student post-reunification living situation, which is characterised by objects of different fashion styles and from different state and cultural forms. So the room can stand as a transfigured symbol of the lonely withdrawn artist, as well as that of a homogenised post-teen generation, passing their time similarly introverted between Ikea furniture and, somewhat anachronistically, cassette and video recorders. The windows, which do not allow a real view because they do not reveal the concrete outside, represent this inward-turning. The only apparent actual view, showing a palm tree, is but an illusion because the plant is located inside the room and is also recognisable as an artificial palm tree. Also the different colouring of the room, which changes to represent the emotional state of the occupant, is just an external application that does not attack or change the respective inside. It is like the image we give ourselves or that people have of us without us knowing ourselves or being recognised.

Download PDF (1MB): Gaden (Web view)

Still Lifes, 2006-2020

Kokon (selection), 2006

A cocoon is a shell that the larvae of various insects create in order to pupate inside. As a space of rest and isolation it serves to protect from external influences.

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A 21st century trend discovered by social psychologists is called "cocooning", the retreat into private life. To reduce stress and for more safety, people use their own homes as a living, shopping and working environment. Electronic media are increasingly used for consumption and gathering information.
My work addresses the isolation and loneliness of people - their entrapment between the intake of food and information. The apparent tranquility of the refuge is meant to be disrupted, revealing confusion, inner aimlessness and lack of perspective. Part of my work is the examination of the relationship between image and reality. Objects and spaces are enveloped in paint and other materials. Writing and familiar symbols of the consumer society are distorted and abstracted, yet they do not lose their distinctness. Perspective, light and shadow are exaggerated or withdrawn completely.
The resulting staging is ultimately visualized again through photography, whereby the reality of the photographed space is heightened and turned into something peculiar. Habitual ways of seeing are manipulated in a play with memory and references. Recognizing rough surfaces and brushstrokes is meant to lead the viewer away from assigning the work to photography and towards painting. Traces of fleeting pastime as well as feelings of inner emptiness are preserved through the means of painting and simultaneously trigger confusion in the viewer.

Table with chair, C-Print on MDF, 100 x 120 cm

Desk, C-Print on MDF, 100 x 108 cm

TV, C-Print on MDF, 100 x 150 cm

Still life with MC, C-Print, 50 x 63 cm

2009-2012 Master of Fine Arts – Professor Tina Bara
2009 Diploma with highest honours at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig – Professor Tina Bara
2003-2009 Studies of Photography at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig
2001-2003 Studies of Photography at the University in Essen

Grants/Awards

2023 NEUSTARTplus, Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn
2022 Scholarship, Leipzig
2020 – Denkzeit – Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen
2017 Catalog grant, Kulturamt der Stadt Leipzig
2017 Catalog grant, Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn
2016 Artists support from the Heussenstamm Foundation, Frankfurt/Main
2015 Otto Steinert Award
2013 Scholarship Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn
2012 Scholarship Trustee-Program Else-Heiliger-Fonds Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
2009 gute_aussichten – young german photography
2007 Nomination for Plat(t)form 07 Photomuseum Winterthur
2006 Kodak Young Talent Award

Exhibitions (Selection)

2024
„shell“, Gallery the grass is greener, Leipzig
„XXX, 30.Leipziger Jahresausstellung“, Werkschauhalle Baumwollspinnerei, Leipzig
„Superego“, Westside, Gallery Kleindienst, Leipzig (Solo)

2023
„Gruppenshow - Wintersaloon“, shower gallery, Leipzig
„Grand Opening“, shower gallery, Leipzig

2021
„IM FLUTLICHT – Historische Fotografien und zeitgenössische Kunst“, Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig (Catalog)

2020
corona

2019
„PARADIGMA Blickwechsel 2019_copyright“, Tapetenwerk, Leipzig
„Bauhaus Dessau“, Josef Filipp Gallery, Leipzig (Solo)
„VISIONEN DER MODERNE HEUTE“, Museum for Photography, Braunschweig

2018
„Young German Photography - NEW POSITIONS“, KulturBäckerei, Lüneburg
„25. Leipziger Jahresausstellung: SILBER“, Baumwollspinnerei Werkschauhalle, Leipzig (Catalog)
„f/stop Komplize: Bauhaus Dessau“, Josef Filipp Gallery, Leipzig
„Das ganze Programm [Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself ...]“, Josef Filipp Gallery, Leipzig
„gute aussichten DELUXE“, Haus der Photographie - Deichtorhallen, Hamburg

2017
„Kundmanngasse 19“, Josef Filipp Gallery, Leipzig
„gute aussichten DELUXE“, Museo de la Cancillería Mexico City, Mexico

2016
„Bizarre!“, AIAP, Monaco (Catalog)
„Paintings, Drawings & Photo's“, (with Sabastian Hosu) Rutger Brandt Gallery, Amsterdam (Solo)
„f/stop Photography Festival Leipzig“, Gallery the grass is greener, Leipzig
„Projektion - Fotografische Behauptungen“, Darmstadt Days of Photography, Main Exhibition, Darmstadt
„Art Paris“, represented by Rutger Brandt Gallery Amsterdam, Paris
„Kundmanngasse 19“, Heussenstamm Gallery, Frankfurt am Main (Solo)

2015
„PAN Amsterdam“, represented by Rutger Brandt Gallery, Amsterdam
„The world is everything that is the case“, (with Wolfram Ebersbach), Gallery the grass is greener, Leipzig (Solo)

2014
„REALITÄTEN ("Komplizen"-Exhibition f/stop Festival)“, Gallery Queen Anne, Leipzig
„EHF Benefit-Exhibition 2014“, Akademie der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin

2013
„Nachbilder“, Gallery Queen Anne, Leipzig
„TWO IN ONE“ (with Katharina Pöpping), E-Werk, Freiburg (Solo)
„EHF Benefit-Exhibition 2013“, Akademie der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin

2012
„Panhorama“, Gallery Queen Anne, Leipzig (Solo; Catalog)
„Meisterschülerausstellung“, HGB, Leipzig
„EHF Benefit-Exhibition 2012“, Akademie der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin
"Mustererkennung", Museum of Applied Arts, Cologne

2011
„Group exhibition EHF 2010-2012 – Grant“, Akademie der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin
„EHF Benefit-Exhibition 2011“, Akademie der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin
„GEMALTER RAUM - FOTOGRAFIERTE MALEREI (with Maxim Liulca)“, Periscope, Salzburg (Solo)
„Auslöser – Photography concepts in Leipzig“, Kunsthalle der Sparkasse Leipzig (Catalog)

2010
„Frei nach Malerei“, Künstlerhaus Dortmund
„Eigenleben“, G5 Kultur, Munich
„gute aussichten - young german photography 2009/2010“ Haus der Photographie - Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (Catalog)
„4. International Photography-Biennale "GRID 2010" in Amsterdam
„Festival PhotoEspana“, Goethe-Institut, Madrid, Spain
„gute aussichten 2009/2010“, Art Foyer DZ Bank, Frankfurt/Main
„gute aussichten 2009/2010“, Goethe-Institut, Washington DC, USA

2009
„gute aussichten - young german photography 2009/2010“ with the work „in situ“ Museum Marta, Herford
„INNEN // AUSSEN // INNEN“, Tapentenwerk, Leipzig
„There is no second world, no hinterworld, no utopian place.“, Galeria Plan B, Berlin
„Diploma exhibition“, HGB, Leipzig
„in situ“, Gallery Quartier, Leipzig (Solo, Catalog)

2008
„So jung kommen wir nicht mehr zusammen...“, Pasinger Fabrik, Munich (Catalog)
„rome rom roma, 50/50“, Goethe-Institut Rome, Rome
„Introspections“, Gallery |doppel de|, Dresden
„Bermuda“-Annenkapelle in GZ-Görlitz

2007
„500 mal x“ Exhibition for the study prize of the Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig (Catalog)
„Kodak Young Talent Award“, Haus der Wirtschaft, Stuttgart
„die 35...“, Welde Brewery Art Prize, Plankstadt
Contribution to the short film night Schwerin with the videoloop „eines morgens...“, Schwerin

2006
„Ausgezeichnet“, Pressehaus Gruner und Jahr; Hamburg
„Kodak Young Talent Award“ Visual Gallery , Photokina; Cologne (Catalog)
„Twice – angemalt und ausgestellt“, HGB; Leipzig

2005
„Private Rituale“, Photogallery Friedrichshain; Berlin
„Autoportret i Inscenizacja“, Wrocław, Poland

                
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