Idol's Not Dead

Idol’s Not Dead

Are there originals without influence?

Anyone who has ever drawn will, at first, draw or copy what they see. In photography, which “paints with light,” it’s no different. We gain creative freedom over time by distancing ourselves and thinking things through. The “Idol’s Not Dead” project explores precisely this paradox.

It is a deeply personal exploration of photographic idols and their influences—an approach to these role models that simultaneously involves a conscious distancing.

The approaches to the work are as varied as the chosen photographic idols themselves: Some students use photography to raise awareness and bring socially relevant issues to light. Others focus on technical and visual details, which they translate into their own visual language. Still others seek moments in which images evoke feelings rather than simply explain. Images in which atmosphere and emotion take center stage.

Visual languages are thus not simply “quoted” or copied, but placed in a new context. Through dialogue with their chosen idols, a new, distinct visual language emerges.
The exhibition “Idol’s Not Dead” makes this newly acquired language visible and allows visitors to experience it as a distinct position at the intersection of influence and autonomy.