ANGELIKA RINNHOFER

Sammelsurium

November 5 – December 28, 2007

Gallery Reception:
Thursday, November 8, 2007 from 5-8pm

German artist Angelika Rinnhofer grew up surrounded by the visual opulence of Catholic churches in Bavaria. She spent church services in fearful awe, absorbing the images of tortured saints and martyrs that lined the walls. It was an unforgettable experience that she now draws upon as an artist. Trained as a photographer in Germany, Rinnhofer started posing people in bygone costumes, in postures, lighting, and composition inspired by the Old Masters. Not tied to the visual language of just one painter or one period in time, the photographs nevertheless are heavily inspired especially by Albrecht Dürer, Michelangelo, and Caravaggio, by Mannerism and the Renaissance.

Rinnhofer developed her photographic style while working on the portrait series Menschenkunde. The images for her first series are not portraits in a classical sense. They reveal little about the personality or status of the sitter. There is no narrative. The group images in her series Felsenfest reconnect her to the religious content of church paintings.   This intense project examines the lives and tortured deaths of Catholic martyrs. In the style of allegorical church paintings, the martyrs are not depicted in the gore of their torturous moments, but in stylized recreations of those events. With her third series Seelensucht , Rinnhofer returns to the sole figure. If the Felsenfest series captures the final act of the human drama, then the Seelensucht series sums up the epilogue. The martyrs seem resurrected, physically healed, and at peace with their fate.

Rinnhofer's images of martyrs tell the stories of people who stood up for their religion, and against all odds did not recant their beliefs. While all of her photographs are based on actual martyr stories, Rinnhofer withholds the identity of the martyrs to make the images less about specific stories and more about humanity. Cast deep in the past, these stories still bear significance for us today.  

Hannah Frieser
Director
Light Work

Light Work invites groups and individuals to schedule tours and gallery talks of the exhibition and facility. Light Work is a nonprofit, artist-run organization dedicated to the support of artists working in photography and electronic media. Light Work is a member of the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at Syracuse University (CMAC).

Angelika Rinnhofer
Menschenkunde VII, 2001
Pigmented inkjet print

Major exhibitions at Light Work are published in the award winning publication, Contact Sheet, available by subscription or individual order. In addition to the exhibition catalogue for Sammelsurium, photographs by Angelika Rinnhofer are included in the 2006 Light Work Annual, featuring artists who participated in Light Work's Artist-in-Residence program in 2005. The Annual includes an essay on the Menschenkunde series by Ariel Shanberg, executive director of the Center for Photography at Woodstock.

Other information on Angelika Rinnhofer can be found in the Light Work Online Collection. The image Menschenkunde VII, 2001 (see above) will be included in Light Work's 2008 subscription program. The 10 x 8" signed, original print is available for $275, in a limited edition created specifically for Light Work.

Exhibition press release

Gallery hours for these exhibitions are Sunday to Friday, 10am-6pm, and by appointment. To schedule an appointment, please call 315-443-1300. Both the exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. Light Work invites groups and individuals to schedule tours and gallery talks of the exhibition and facility. Tour details

Train of Thought: Serial Images from the Light Work Collection, artists Hollis Frampton, Arnold Gassan, Peter Max Kandhola, Judy Natal and Aaron Siskind, on view at the Hallway Gallery of the Robert B. Menschel Media Center through December 28, 2007. The artists in this exhibition generously donated either a series of prints or a portfolio of prints to the Light Work Collection. This exhibition provides an opportunity to investigate the artists' use of duplication and repetition to explore a single subject or idea. The images in this exhibition are produced using a variety of techniques, including photogravures, ektacolor, silver gelatin prints and chromogenic prints.

Artist Showcase: Images by Brian Arnold, on view at the Community Darkrooms Gallery of the Robert B. Menschel Media Center through December 28, 2007. This exhibition is composed of images by Ithaca-based photographer Brian Arnold that come from multiple series. He utilizes traditional black-and-white processes, remaining committed to what he refers to as "the alchemy of photography." All of his photographs are unique silver gelatin prints, toned with a combination of selenium, sulfur and gold chloride. Arnold also creates unique limited edition books, two of which are included in this exhibition.

A Just Image: Selections from the Light Work Collection—in recognition of the 2007 Syracuse Symposium theme "Justice" students from the SU class "Art and Identity" have selected images from the Light Work Collection. April 24-Dec. 15, 2007 at the Robert B. Menschel Photography Gallery at the Schine Student Center.

The exhibition Train of Thought: Serial Images from the Light Work Collection is on view through December 28.