Media Release Bündner Kunstmuseum Ester Vonplon – Why is the

Media Release Bündner Kunstmuseum
Ester Vonplon – Why is the Silence of the Landscape so Loud?
The Bündner Kunstmuseum as guest at the Stadtgalerie Chur
Stadtgalerie Chur, December 17 to 23, 2014
As an artist Ester Vonplon crosses borders. That applies to her handling of the medium
photography as well as to her concern with content, which takes her to remote places and to
unchartered zones. Vonplon has been awarded this year’s Somedia art prize, which comes with
a publication, the presentation of which is part of the Esther Vonplon exhibition at the
Stadtgalerie Chur.
Point of departure for the art photographer Ester Vonplon (*1980) has repeatedly been the landscape.
Specific thereby is not the concrete geographic location but the fact that landscape first and foremost
appears as pliable matter and that it follows elementary conditions: We experience rock, snow, ice,
sand, desert, clouds as diverse physical states in a continuing process of genesis and demise. With
her work Ester Vonplon walks a fine line, along which the photograph still mirrors the visible world. At
the same time, however, the medium, thanks to its highly experimental handling, manifests itself and
allows us to reflect on the special conditions. The photographs are thereby concrete as well as
abstract.
As viewers we are encouraged to understand the landscape as image and the image as landscape,
and to focus our perception on the elaborations, which are nuanced by the raw materials. Occasionally
that assumes very tangible forms, whilst elsewhere the artist touches the threshold of the invisible.
The images by Ester Vonplon have got a keen suggestive power: Not only are her works a visual
adventure, but they can definitely also be experienced physically, and they touch our innermost
hearts. Landscape and photography fuse in these images into a manifestation of human existence.
Here too Ester Vonplon reaches boundaries: She does not stop at the surface but always penetrates
the depths. She sounds out unfathomable spaces, where there are no points of reference and tries to
seize the elusive.
With the project “Kunst in der Südostschweiz” the Sommedia has been supporting current artistic work
in the region since 2006 and has been granting an art award since 2012.
The related book series is published in cooperation with the Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur.
Opening and Book Presentation:
Tuesday, December 16, 2014, at 6 pm, Stadtgalerie Chur
Welcome and Introduction: Stephan Kunz, Director Bündner Kunstmuseum
Presentation of the art book: Andrea Masüger, CEO Somedia
Apéro
Children’s Workshop – Quiet Stories
December 17, from 2 pm to 4 pm
Registration required at [email protected] or 081 257 28 72
Publication:
Ester Vonplon. Warum ist die Stille der Landschaft so laut? Series Art in the Südostschweiz, with a
preface by Stephan Kunz, published by Somedia Book Publishers and the Bündner Kunstmuseum,
Glarus/Chur: somedia-Buchverlag, 2014, 80 pages, CHF 38.-
Venue:
Stadtgalerie Chur
Rathaus
Poststrasse 33
7000 Chur
Open daily from 12 am to 6 pm
Media Images
Images are ready to be downloaded on the website of the Bündner Kunstmuseum: www.buenderkunstmuseum.ch/medien.html
Please notice the captions
Contact
Stephan Kunz, Director Bündner Kunstmuseum
T +41 (0)81 257 28 68, [email protected]
Dr. Katharina Ammann, Conservator/Communication / Project Management Bündner Kunstmuseum T
+41 (0)81 257 28 62, [email protected]

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