Invitation to exhibition opening

Iwan Baan. Momentum of Light

Daniela Keiser. London – Being in the Library

25. August bis 14. November 2021

Results of the Architecture Competition for the new Kunstmuseum Olten

25. August bis 19. September 2021

We kindly invite You to the opening 
Wednesday 25th august, 6–10 pm

Both artists as well as Iwan Baan's project partner, the architect Francis Kéré, will be present. We hope to be able to welcome also many of the teams involved in the architecture competition for the new Kunstmuseum Olten.

It would be great to see You!

Dear all,

we would like to draw your attention to an extraordinary project, which goes beyond the usual scope of our exhibition activities.

Just in time for the selection of the winning team in the architecture competition for the new Kunstmuseum Olten, and alongside the International Photo Festival Olten, we are presenting two outstanding positions with new works by Iwan Baan and Daniela Keiser, which reflect the related disciplines of art, architecture, and photography from different perspectives.

For more information about the exhibitions of Iwan Baan and Daniela Keiser see further down. Information regarding the architecture competition will be published by the City of Olten.

We would be very happy to welcome You in Olten next Wednesday on that special occation.

Sincerely, Dorothee Messmer and Katja Herlach

photography – architecture – art

... the Kunstmuseum Olten will focus on this triad with its two autumn exhibitions. We will be simultaneously showing works by a photographer, Iwan Baan, and an artist, Daniela Keiser, who have each developed their own unmistakable artistic language from an intensive engagement with architecture and the possibilities of the medium of photography.

Iwan Baan and Daniela Keiser will present brand new projects as well as two new publications, both of which were developed in collaboration with a world-famous architect of African descent (Francis Kéré in the case of Baan, and David Adjaye in the case of Keiser).

Both Iwan Baan and Daniela Keiser are interested in people, their relationship to space and architecture, and their possibilities of using spaces, interacting in them, and shaping them. Using different strategies, both investigate the way in which built worlds impact people and how architecture can influence being and feeling.

Iwan Baan (*1975)

Iwan Baan (*1975), one of the world’s most renowned architectural photographers, will present his latest project Momentum of Light in his first institutional solo exhibition in Switzerland. Under this title, the Dutch photographer will show photographs from a trip to Burkina Faso which he took last March along with the internationally renowned architect Francis Kéré, who was born there, in order to learn about the character of the West African nation’s traditional buildings, how light plays a role in these structures and to capture the living traditions of the local people.

Daniela Keiser (*1963)

Daniela Keiser (*1963), a Swiss artist and Meret Oppenheim Prize winner, deals with the dispersion of light into colors – unlike Baan, whose focus is the duality of light and darkness as an element of spatial structure. Her latest work, which is dedicated to the Idea Store, a London library building by the Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye, is joined in the exhibition by two installations in which the original photographic images create an immersive spatial experience through their translation and presentation as prints.

Two new publications

The latest projects by Iwan Baan and Daniela Keiser are each accompanied by a publication that variously reflects their respective subjects in images and text in cooperation with partners from the field of architecture.

Together with Francis Kéré, Iwan Baan has created a delicately materialized volume of photo essays on the role of light in the architecture of Burkina Faso, which will be published by Lars Müller Publishers in time for the exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Olten. Baan and Kéré travelled to three exemplary locations: Communal compounds in Gando, the main mosque of Bobo Dioulasso and the terraced houses in Dano utilising pots to create skylights. Baan’s pictures are accompanied by architectural sketches by Francis Kéré, who himself grew up in this environment and whose architecture is inspired by it. The realization of this project was made possible by the Zumtobel Group. They invited Iwan Baan to illustrate their 30th annual report; a work which has lead to an independent publication for the first time in the company's history.

Daniela Keiser recently published a book with Park Books in collaboration with the internationally renowned architect David Adjaye as well as Philip Ursprung, professor of art and architectural history at the ETH Zurich. The project, which took shape during Keiser’s fellowship at the Landis & Gyr Foundation in London, uses Adjaye’s Idea Store library on Whitechapel Road to investigate how a public building impacts the lives of people in this underprivileged neighborhood and how built identities manifest themselves.

Credits

Abb. 1
Iwan Baan (*1975)
Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. A woman walking up to the flat rooftop of a vernacular building in Bobo-Dioulasso, which is also used as a terrace and to dry and store goods, 2021 
© Iwan Baan 

Abb. 2
Daniela Keiser (*1963)
Library-Idea Store, Whitechapel Road, 2017–2020
Heliogravure and Chine-collé, Edition B
© Daniela Keiser

Abb. 3
Iwan Baan (*1975)
Tiebele, Burkina-Faso, Aerial view across Tiébélé's royal compound, 2021 
© Iwan Baan 

Abb. 4
Daniela Keiser (*1963)
Happy Birthday, 2017/2018
Einzelwerk aus Fotoinstallation, 69-teilig, Heliogravure auf Büttenpapier
je 55.5 x 76 cm
© Daniela Keiser

Abb. 5
Iwan Baan (*1975)
Tiebele, Burkina Faso. A storage area in a traditional house in Tiebele, 
containing an entire household’s goods lit up by daylight 
streaming through two skylights.
© Iwan Baan