In this year’s presentation at photo basel, Galerie Albrecht will focus on two artists who integrate reflections on photography as a medium and on the act of taking photographs into their work:

What happens when a photograph is taken, and what is the relationship between object (that which is photographed) and active subject (the photographer)?

“If seeing precedes words, what precedes seeing?,” asks Olivier Richon. And: Does the motif of a photograph become an object, or is the photographer the object and the motif the active subject that wants to be photographed and casts a spell on the photographer, since, like a fetish, it has magic powers? Oliver Richon takes leave of the notion that a photograph is merely a document of a real object or a real situation, created by the photographer. Even without Photoshop, the photograph is intrinsically subject to manipulation, he suggests, either by the photographer’s subjective gaze or by the manipulative charisma of the motif, which forces a photograph. His photographs stage scenarios that seem familiar and seemingly easy to read, but yet they are difficult to decipher. They are quite mysterious: Allegories? Still lifes? Surreal worlds?

Tom Benson puts the matter slightly differently. How does material influence vision? Does a work’s surface, and the manner in which it is presented, influence our perception? His photographs, printed with UV-proof ink on paper, approach the field of drawing. The haptic quality of the paper, the hair, and the skin, the material of the blouse play an important role. They bring the object closer, make it tactile. The young woman’s gaze is initially pensive and averted, slowly she turns her head towards the beholder, and just before she faces him directly, the series stops.

But the movement has an effect. At first the beholder is a voyeur who penetrates the private sphere of the young woman with his gaze, at the end he is the one who is excluded, her gaze passing him by. The changing gaze, its different presentation, transforms our perception.