The visit in Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg

I mentioned my visit in The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg two entries below. It was my second visit there and it was outstanding. The first one took place in 2003 during my EVS (European Voluntary Service). I went there with Laia then.

They have great permanent collection that contains few works of my beloved Kandinsky, Miró and Klee among others and both times I went there they were presenting marvelous temporary exhibitions. It's also worth to mention that there are always really handsome, attractive guys among visitors who are worth to look at not less than the pieces of art hanging on the walls. The atmosphere there attracts, as I believe, people who enjoy calmness and peaceful atmosphere. It's very calm there, very silent, never too many visitors. It's nothing like museums in Paris. One can attain very intimate relation with the art thanks to it. I loved that.

There were two temporary exhibitions that draw my attention particularly. The first one was called "Instant anonymes" - the collection of photography from random, ordinary people's albums. It was real treat for someone like me who loves observing people around. The second one's title was "Balthasar Burkhard – Reconnaissances 1969-2007" and it's obviously not hard to guess it was the monography of works of Balthasar Burkhard, the photographer. I felt in love with it.

The three main topics that can be single out when looking on his pictures are: animals, cities & nature, and human body, parts of human bodies, being more precise. He does also some documentaries, kind of tourist photos but focused on people I would say.

He seems to try to excerpt magic from cities and nature. He achieves that by taking pictures special way, from special perspective. Cities are usually photographed from long distances, in large perspective. However, since the format of photos is very large one can also see details if he wishes so. And the nature photos present relatively small pieces of it, like waterfalls, forest glade or so. But Burkhard shows always very special parts of it, the ones that look strange, unusual and he photographs them exceptional way, using long exposition or making use of other tricks. The photos evokes magic, maybe even disturbance in audience, they seem to be out of this world.

Animals are photographed as in anatomy textbooks. I'm sure you saw sometimes the flashes from dog shows on TV. The dogs there assume all those strange poses when they appear in front of jury. Those poses are the most neutral for them, allow them to be shown at their best. But on the other hand they seem to be completely unnatural for animals, we never see them like that. Burkhard does the same thing with all other species. Bears, elephants, ostriches... You name it. Because of the way they are presented on his photos they also seem to come from outer space. They seem to be alien life forms to me. They are like perfect specimens of their species, prototypes.

And human bodies. Perfection and beauty itself. Perfection and beauty indeed. Those qualities of human body can be perceived and appreciated more easily and thoroughly since only parts of body are shown on the pictures. It's like pointing out certain elements of our bodies with aim of making audience admiring them separately, one by one and fully appreciating their beauty. It's like Burkhard would try to avoid any distraction in audience, any superficial in watching what photos presents. He seems to make in order to revel in watching those bodies. That's my guess. I didn't read abut his work yet.

He's defiantly worth to be recommended. With remark, however, that maybe not recommended to people with great temper. But what do I know? Maybe it's not contemplative art at all.