Artist:
Dirk Brömmel (born 1968 in Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Germany; lives and works in Wiesbaden, Germany).
Description:
“The known German artist Dirk Brömmel is going to organize a personal photographic exhibition devoted to the Villa Tugendhat of Mies Van der Rohe. The residence was designed from the known architect between 1928-1930 in Brno in the Czech Republic. Designed for the Fritz Tugendhat and his wife Greta’s family, the residence is today a paradigm of the modern movement and Mies Van der Rohe’s ‘less is more.’
“The choice of the house for the exhibition maybe was made not only due to its meaning as a characteristic sample of the architecture of the twentieth century, but also because of its great and turbulent history. The family abandoned the house and the Czech Republic in 1938 without returning back. In 1939 the house was used by the Gestapo and later as an apartment and office. During World War II, it was partially destroyed and was later reconstructed. Since 1994, the house has been open to the public as a museum and since 2011 has been characterized as a monument of cultural heritage by UNESCO.
“Brömmel attempts to etch time in the residence and visualize the past. Before the building closed in 2010 for reconstruction, the artist managed to create again the atmosphere of the ’30s inside the house, so that he could imprint the era with contemporary photographs. Working with the photographic files with the contemporary ones, he created images in which space, although it is imprinted in two different eras, seems unchanged in time. Through photographs, he wants to refer to the family and their everyday life and habits into the space which is designed by Mies van der Rohe.”
—”Dirk Brömmel: Villa Tugendhat Exhibition,” Greekarchitects.net, March 12, 2012.
“The Villa Tugendhat in Brno, built in 1929/30 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is one of the most significant buildings of the modern age. In his work, photographer Dirk Brömmel does not deal with this architectural icon within the narrative of traditional architectural photography but instead merges the building’s past and its previous inhabitants with the present. Starting with original photos from the Tugendhat family’s photo album, Brömmel himself proceeds to search for the venues depicted in the album. Using a sandwiching process, he places the old photographs over his current images and in this way plays with reality and with time to create fascinating views of a place laden with history and stories.”
—”Villa Tugendhat: Photographs by Dirk Brömmel,” Kerber Verlag website.
