Klaus vom Bruch. Kinder des Olymp

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Klaus vom Bruch presents the complete series of 'Kinder des Olymps' at Helga Maria Klosterfelde Edition after a first successful showing of a large selection of the series at this year's Art Cologne, and in doing so, he sends us on a journey in time back to the future of Art. His photographs are bacchantic snap shots and intimate portraits of a young generation of artists who mutually and playfully crowned themselves, with loosely woven wreaths, the last of the Avantgarde and who have today become legends.

Their faces, although well known to us, are lost in reverie. But we can recognise traits of these people who are now famous and mostly pictured striking poses. Klaus vom Bruch's historic photographs, however, reveal innocence, thrownness, naivety and the alternative world that made their art possible in the first instance. In his autobiography, Klaus vom Bruch writes: “From 1973, inside of a close circle of artists, intellectuals, gallerists and groupies, I began to take snap shots with a Japanese 35mm camera. […] I was the youngest of a mostly happy troupe who moved in a system of attitudes and actions. […] All of the people photographed later became so-called cultural key players, even if only momentarily. Or, formulated in an anthropological way: Clan chiefs within a delimited claim of familial, sexual or matrimonial relationships.” Klaus vom Bruch's series is held in the permanent collection of the Kunstmuseum Bonn.