«Posing» is something you used to do in front of the portrait painter and then later in front of the photographer. Posing is about showing oneself in a particular posture, with a particular gesture, to express something special, to present oneself. Today, in the era of mobile phones, people are constantly posing for photos – and posting them on social media.
Picture frames give a painting a framework; since baroque times it is often a portrait in portrait format. On one wall in the hall of the second floor of the palace, lined up next to and below each other, hang many such portraits of people in wooden frames, some of which are covered with gold lacquer. Sometimes the people depicted are known, sometimes the few clues in the picture are not enough to identify them.
How the people are painted, what clothes they are wearing and in what posture they appear gives clues as to whether they are important figures in politics and the nobility or whether they were wealthy people. Poor peasants, maids or children were not usually portrayed. And today?
SELFIES IN THE MUSEUM
During the 2019 season, all visitors could post themselves in the museum gallery: With a photo installation, everyone in the museum could become part of the exhibition for a moment as a framed museum piece. A camera set up throughout the season in front of the gold-framed portrait gallery on the second floor was equipped with a self-timer. It took the picture of the people who wanted to be photographed. Their selfie was transmitted directly to the painting gallery. There, one's own image could then be seen on the monitor and was thus included in the collection of new human portraits.
INSTALLATION «POSING FOR ETERNITY»
2 April - 31 October 2019
«Posing» and «posting»
The private portraits of people today are everywhere and always available. They can be accessed on the internet and on social media at any time. The presence of one's own likeness in a museum space gives this fact greater significance: people are to be confronted with the contradiction between public and private, between "normal" and "special", in order to question values.
Usually, the value of an object - and in this case the value of a portrait painting - is measured by the corresponding form of its commensurate presentation. What presents itself as an everyday, almost banal picture on the internet, may well turn out to be a special image in the environment of a museum. The installation "Posing for Eternity" is intended to provoke thought and discussion about today's ubiquity of our own images.
Porträtgalerie Poser und Poserinnen für die Ewigkeit
