Reinhard Görner
Sleeping Beauty, Old National Gallery, Berlin
2007

Name: Sleeping Beauty, Old National Gallery, Berlin
Brand: Reinhard Görner
Price: 11000 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

60 x 45 inches ed. of 5 $6,000 80 x 60 inches ed. of 5 $9,000 93.2 x 70 inches ed. of 5 $11,000 signed and numbered on label, verso Reinhard Görner, with his large format photographs orchestrates the monumentality of historical architecture, gardens, and masterpieces. An active architecture photographer since 1985, is a master of perspectives and precise spatial compositions, and he thus considers classical sculpture, in all of its possible facets, a special challenge. "Görner’s photographs sometimes open the doors to another world and take the viewer with them on a journey through time. Here the palace is no longer a museum but both royal residence and a site steeped in history. The viewer does not have to share the halls with the masses of visitors; instead the images offer him exclusive impressions of the Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors) and the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles) as even the king of France was probably never granted. The halls are empty of people, yet they seem to be able to unfurl their individual characters of their own accord. These places practically breathe history, and this aspect is also part of the essence captured in the photographs. King Wilhelm of Prussia was named German Emperor Wilhelm I in the Hall of Mirrors after France was defeated in 1870–1871 in the Franco-German War. The Treaty of Versailles following World War I was also signed there in 1919. In this sense, the architectural photographs of Versailles’s ceremonial rooms have an edge on Renaissance paintings; here even a sense of world history arises within the viewer – one which continues to exert an influence today". Horst Klöver Notes on the Old National Gallery and Sleeping Beauty: The Old National Gallery (Alte Nationalgalerie) is the original home of the Nationalgalerie, whose collections today are divided between the New National Gallery, the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum for Contemporary Art – Berlin, the Friedrichswerder Church, Museum Berggruen and the Collection Scharf-Gerstenberg. The idea of establishing a cultural and educational centre across from the Berlin Palace dates back to the time of Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who dreamt of creating a "sanctuary for art and science" on the site. The basic architectural concept for the Alte Nationalgalerie – a temple-like building raised on a plinth decorated with motifs from antiquity – came from the king himself. The building was designed by Friedrich August Stüler, a student of Schinkel who also designed the Neues Museum. It was completed after Stüler’s death by another of Schinkel’s students, Johann Heinrich Strack. During the division of Germany, the 19th-century paintings that had survived the war in Western zones of occupation were housed in the Neue Nationalgalerie, starting in 1968, and in Schloss Charlottenburg’s Gallery of Romanticism from 1986. After the fall of the Berlin wall, the growing collections were united in their original building, now called the Alte Nationalgalerie, on Berlin’s Museumsinsel. Accommodating the collection meant repairing the damage the war had wrought to the building as well as adding new rooms. The architectural firm HG Merz Berlin was entrusted with this work in 1992. In March of 1998 the Alte Nationalgalerie was closed for renovations. The museum was finally re-opened in December 2001, marking its 125th anniversary. The sculpture in the foreground is an 1878 work by Louis Sussmann-Hellborn (March 20, 1828 – August 15, 1908), also spelled Ludwig Sussman Hellborn, was a German sculptor, painter, art collector and contractor. Louis Sussmann-Hellborn received his training as a sculptor at the Berlin Academy of Arts. He traveled to study in France, Belgium and England. He lived In Rome from 1852 to 1856. The first major exhibition of his works was organized in Berlin in 1856. His villa at Tiergarten was one of the most representative buildings of the district and made him famous within the educated society of Berlin. In 1875 Arnold Bocklin bought Sussmann Hellborn's painting "Meeresidylle" ("Sea Idyll", aka "Triton and Nereid") for 10,000 marks (it was later at the National Gallery, and it's missing since 1945). He was one of the founders of the Royal Museum of Decorative Arts and was also involved in building a sculpture collection at the Royal Museum in Berlin. From 1882 to 1887, Sussmann-Hellborn was head of the Royal Porcelain Manufactory (KPM) in Berlin. Otto Lessing (1846–1912) and he were at that time the only sculptors in the Berlin Association of Architects, which had probably to do with his work as an excellent sculptor. Louis Sussmann-Hellborn was married to the celebrated beauty Bertha Hellborn. He died in Berlin and is buried at the Jewish cemetery Schönhauser Allee.

Creator:

Reinhard Görner (1950, German)

Creation Year:

2007

Dimensions:

Height: 93.2 in (236.73 cm)Width: 70 in (177.8 cm)

Medium:

Lambda

Movement & Style:

Conceptual

Period:

21st Century

Condition:

Gallery Location:

Los Angeles, CA

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU1483581302

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Reinhard Görner

Libraries are both shelters and places of escape. It is this feeling that German photographer Reinhard Görner has been exploring for many years, in search of the most beautiful and solemn reading rooms around the world. Intimate libraries nestled in the heart of secluded abbeys or grandiose halls of prestigious universities, for the German artist, these rooms are an inexhaustible reservoir of inspiration. Let yourself be transported through architectures, styles and eras in this portrait of Reinhard Görner, a self-taught artist with a multifaceted and contagious passion. As an architectural photographer, Reinhard worked for many years for architects before deciding to focus on his passion. His goal is to explore how the great masters of architecture have created spaces that breathe beauty and silence by playing with shadows, light, proportions, rhythms. He quickly discovered that libraries have always been and still are wonderful playgrounds for architects, allowing them to focus on the question of form and emptiness: "I see myself as an ambassador trying to convey the spirit of these builders with my photographic means". The artist photographed and fell in love with his first library in 2005, as he was working with architect Sir Norman Foster and captured the philological library of Berlin’s Frei Universität. Since then, the cathedral-like atmosphere of New York’s Rose main reading room made a long-lasting impact on the artist and he started to intensify his documentation of libraries across the world. Görner’s photographs seek to convey the impact architecture has on our awareness of life : the libraries he captures open spaces, tell stories and refer to a time when one’s sense of aestethics and sense of space were identical. Görner’s photos refer to the vastness great architecture has been celebrating throughout history, bringing to mind historical periods where beauty and tranquility meet. His work pays a tribute to the Becher art school. Like other disciples’ – Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff and Candida Höfer – Görner’s work is strictly conceptual, combined with a fine technical approach. All their works demonstrate the same fascination for typology and record the heritage of the western cultural and industrial past.