THE ARTISTS
We are exited to present works by Nina Röder and Ingo Taubhorn together for the first time. Both artists have been working with self-portraiture for years, using it as a tool of empowerment. What connects them is a deep engagement with the concept of family – not only as a social construct, but also as a personal, often ambivalent space that shapes identity.
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Since the beginning of his passion for this extraordinary medium, Ingo Taubhorn has been deeply engaged with the reception of photography – whether as an exhibition curator, publicist, or educator. Over the course of his work as a museum curator, he has overseen countless presentations of international artists. However, this text primarily concerns his own artistic development and the production of his art.
Whether exploring the significance of family in his life, portraying male friends in their private spheres, examining his past or his relationship with his own body, or presenting the world as a sequence of images –sometimes wearing his mother’s clothes with her participation – his work consistently seeks the universal within the personal. His is a committed gaze, one that not only accompanies queer ways of life but also negotiates social phenomena between artist and viewer. In doing so, he aligns himself with the philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, advocating for the recognition and defense of the uniqueness and autonomy of different ways of life, orientations, and cultures. Rather than dreaming of reconciliation, he confronts their tensions as part of a vital society. In this way, the circle between his artistic work and the reception of photography comes full circle.
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Nina Röder’s artistic focus is on photographic works that negotiate sublime structures
of biographical narratives and combine aspects of the performative with the time-
based image space of photography. The often absurd or poetic atmosphere of
her scenographies conveys the tension of her figures' biographical experiences.
Two thematic complexes crystalize in her work: photographs taken in natural space
that connect to discourses on Post-Romanticism and narratives of natural history,
and series that engage with biographical narratives of her family. The series about
her family are explicitly searching for hidden and historical mechanisms of personality
development and inherited traumas. A whimsical - often humorous - approach plays
a crucial role. Her photographs in the natural space negotiate different aspects of
psychological states in connection with the phenomenon of letting go of people.
