Fotomuseum Winterthur: Karaoke – Photographic Quotes

Softcover, 210 x 270 mm, 100 pages, german and english edition.

Edited by Thomas Seelig

Published by Fotomuseum Winterthur & Kodoji Press Baden, 2009

English edition: ISBN: 978-3-03747-021-3

 

This somewhat unusual catalog accompanying the exhibition Karaoke – Photographic Quotes at Fotomuseum Winterthur is graphically and conceptually taking up the notion of photographs as quotes, but is also playing with karaoke-aspect mentioned in the title. Instead of working with the usual essay-like catalog-texts, we collected short quotes from various theoretical, literary and artistic texts and mixed them together with a selection of images from the exhibition: a catalog, playfully mimicking an evening in a karaoke-bar.

 

This wild mix of photographic and textual quotes from Becky Beasley to Oprah Winfrey and from Thomas Galler to Andy Warhol was “arranged” randomly by graphic designer Marc Kappeler from Moiré, who was using iTunes to shuffle the photographs and texts like songs on an iPod or a laptop. Out came a surprising potpourri, resembling an evening of collective singing in a karaoke-bar, playful and sincere at the same time. 

 

Jarvis Cocker together with his band Pulp sing about the end of irony and about a collage by Clunie Reid, Martha Rosler gives a theoretical twist to Aneta Grzeszykowska’s imitation of Cindy Sherman’s epochal Untitled Film Stills, whereas Truman Capote goes after a Japanese punk-portrait by Oliver Sieber with pointed scissors. 

Many combinations create surprisingly many and new meanings. Others are more of a meaningless pleasure. Just like karaoke.

 

But this catalog is also an inventory of contemporary artistic positions, of lifestyles and attitudes towards life. Commented upon and accentuated by a host of quotes that mirror, challenge, reassess and pinpoint the photographs in an exciting new way – from the past and into the future.

 

The numbers next to the pictures and texts – all circling around the theme of postmodern quotations, self-confident copying and ironic new beginnings – refer to the index on the first three pages of the catalog. By way of this index one can find out which artists and authors are responsible for which of the shuffled texts and pictures.