Übers Meer brings together photographs by Peter Bialobrzeski, taken last year at the Polish Baltic Sea and in Travemünde, and paintings by Miwa Ogasawara. The photographer and the painter are friends, and they value each other's work. They had the idea of collaborating in the following way: Miwa Ogasawara responds to Peter Bialobrzeski's photographs.

In music, every instrument has its own timbre and expressive power, and the same is true for the fine arts. Even when Miwa Ogasawara takes the same motif, she turns it into something completely different. A woman in a bikini, standing in water, becomes a nameless figure without any details, the bikini remains, the face is anonymised. This also happens to the other people who on the photograph are recognisable as individuals, but disappear in painting.

The relationship between painting and photography has been explored in depth numerous times, for example at Kunsthaus Zürich or the Clemens Sels Museum Neuss. Developments in contemporary painting are unthinkable without photography, while photography—as much as it emulated painting in the beginning—does not require painting for its development. It always has direct access to reality and can decide how reality is to be captured in the photograph. Every photographer has his/her own approach. Bialobrzeski pays a great deal of attention to the conditions of light when he takes photographs, which allows him to achieve a colour spectrum that is unique to his work. Painting, on the other hand, depends fully on the painter, and it is much further removed from reality. In terms of faithful representation, it is inferior to photography, but it has the freedom to reformulate reality in any way the painter desires.

In rare cases, photographers know when painters use their photographs as models, but usually painters have no idea when their work has influenced a photographer. In this present case, this happens openly, which generates a dialogue about the perception of the world. Step by step, the world is alienated from itself, first by the photographer, then by the painter, and becomes a picture.

Peter Bialobrzeski was born in Wolfsburg in 1961; he lives and works in Hamburg and the world. After getting a degree in politics and sociology, he studied photography at the Folkwang Schule in Essen and at the London College of Printing. He is professor of photography at Hochschule der Künste Bremen. In 2003 and 2010, he received the World Press Photo Award, and in 2012 the Erich Salomon Award of the DGPh in Cologne. His work can be found in numerous private and public collections, including Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, FC Gundlach Collection, Hamburg, Ruhrmuseum Essen, Fotoforum Köln, Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea Milano, DZ Bank Frankfurt/M, Hessische Landesbank Frankfurt/M, Quandt Holding Frankfurt/M, ING Bank Netherlands, Deutsche Börse Group Frankfurt/M, Museo Vaticano in Rome and Uni Credit Art Collection in Munich.

Miwa Osagawara was born in Japan in 1973; she lives and works in Hamburg. After getting a degree in design, she studied painting at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg and finished her studies with a diplom. In 2006 she received the DAAD Grant and in 2008 the grant of the Else-Heiliger-Fonds of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung among others. Her work can be found in numerous private and public collections, including Centre Pompidou Paris, Sammlung Zeitgenössische Kunst Der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Junge Kunst im Bundesministerium für Umwelt Bonn, Jil Sander Collection Hamburg, Burger Collection Zürich/Hongkong, Guttmann Collection, New York, 1221 Gendaikaiga-Contemporary Painting Collection, Tokyo, Arario Museum, Seoul, Yu-Hsiu Museum of Art, Taiwan.

Press release courtesy Galerie Albrecht.