When Johann Wolfgang von Goethe borrowed the concept of ‘elective affinities’ from chemistry at the beginning of the 19th century, he was describing a peculiar form of attraction: connections that are unplanned yet arise with an almost natural, self-evident certainty. Substances break away from existing structures and come together anew because there is a deeper affinity between them. The works in Johanna Breede’s group exhibition ‘Elective Affinities’ seem to have found one another …

The Roman augurs once determined the will of the gods by observing the flight of birds. The place from which they did this was called the “templum”. Over time, the meaning of "contemplatio" - looking at something - expanded from the sensual to the spiritual realm. The photograph of an owl fixing its gaze on a branch winding into the picture plane seems like a symbol of this inner vision. Leaves, branches and roots are recurring protagonists in the landscapes and still lifes of Ayak…

There is no single female gaze. When women look at women, the gazes are as varied as the personalities of the photographers and their models - anyone visiting Johanna Breede's gallery this summer can see this for themselves. We encounter tender glances and encouraging ones, those that look cautiously behind façades and those that are thrown at a person as if casually catching a glimpse. On the gallery walls in Berlin's Fasanenstraße, it is mainly silent glances from wome…