ÜberStädte
Photographs by Maria Sewcz
Every city develops its own profile, has its own pulse, which is decisively regulated by both historical and actual power relations. Starting from this premise, Maria Sewcz has created photographic cycles on large cities, including Istanbul (2016–17), Rome (2011–12), Berlin (2013–16), and London (2018 on-going). Sewcz's pieces on cities form the core of her oeuvre; they are self-contained, independent groups of works. For Sewcz, large cities are centrifuges of acceleration in modernity and symbolise the great themes of our time. This exhibition will also feature early work from the years 1979 to 1985, including the cities of Gdansk, Prague, and Leningrad (St Petersburg). The body of work "TR 34; ISTANBUL" will be shown in a room installation. It was created in the period between the attempted coup in Turkey in July 2016 and the constitutional referendum in April 2017.
Maria Sewcz (*1960 in Schwerin) studied photography at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig. Already gaining early recognition with her portfolio "inter esse" (Berlin 1985–87), the artist has received numerous awards and grants, including the scholarship of the German Academy of Rome, Villa Massimo, and the Istanbul Artist-in-Residence Scholarship of the Berlin Senate Department for Culture, among many others. Her works feature in important collections such as the Photography Collection, LACMA, Los Angeles; the DZ BANK collection, Frankfurt am Main; or the Photographic Collection of the Berlinische Galerie. Up-to-date information on current exhibitions can be found here.
