Seance House Berlin Exhibition 2024

Derived from the old French word ‘seoir’ (to sit), for a ‘session or gathering’, a ‘séance’ implies the existence and presence of ‘the many’. Séance comprises a selection of artworks individually dealing differently with the themes of the metaphysical, transcendence, subconsciousness and death, constituting a ‘frame of reference’ around works by artist Jeff Cowen (*New York, 1966). In the realm of contemporary photography, Jeff Cowen’s work stands as a mystic medium, bridging the visible with the invisible, and the present with the echoes of the past. His photographic-painterly practice, deeply ingrained in the history of photography, surpasses the traditional boundaries of the medium, exploring the ethereal aspects of time, memory, and spiritual resonance. Photography and spiritualism, or occult, have an intertwined history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the spiritualist movement, séances, and interest in the supernatural coincided with the rise of photography. Even some of the surrealistic practices - that contained an influencing openness for alternative or ‘magical realities’, are routed in spiritualism. The surrealists Breton and Apollinaire were often given credit for automatic writing, but in fact, the parent movement of this technique was spiritualism. Transcendence in Cowen’s work is evident in his ability to transform ordinary subjects into profound, almost otherworldly, experiences. His photographs are not mere representations; they are invitations to a deeper realm of existence. Through a meticulous process of manipulation and layering in his laboratory, Cowen coaxes out the invisible aspects of his subjects - their aura, their spirit, their essence. Works by Hans Bellmer, Joseph Beuys, Anna & Bernhard Blume, Claude Cahun & Marcel Moore, Germaine Dulac, Rudolf Koppitz, Albert Leo Peil, Sigmar Polke & Christof Kohlhöfer, Margaret Raspé (i.a.) constitute an ‘inspirational frame of reference’ (following the understanding of ‘inspiration’ as something that is ‘breathed in’) exemplarily visualizing the ‘hidden dimension’ that provides inner guidance for artistic creation. A musical composition based on the idea of silence in sound by Gustave Rudman will play throughout the exhibition.