Tal Sterngast. Zwölf Bilder

The photographer and art critic Tal Sterngast dedicates each of the twelve texts in this book to a painting from the Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, which is renowned for its outstanding collection of European masterpieces from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In the synopsis of the author's idiosyncratic selection, a painting is presented, which discovers itself and simultaneously becomes a medium for the expression of modern subjectivity. Through interpretation, each of the paintings discussed here reveals the process of its own creation in conjunction with concerns that also reflect our existence today. What, for example, are the paradoxes in which art is made by women-paradoxes between the monstrous idea of endless birth and the suffering caused by the absence of self? How does the primal urge to destroy works of art affect contemporary art discourse? Where did the modern struggle of painting versus the image begin? And why does it matter whether Johannes Vermeer used an optical device for his paintings or not? This book notes the topicality of the old masters and is an enjoyable reading and learning experience.

TAL STERNGAST (*1972, Israel) studied photography and film in Jerusalem, London, and Berlin. She publishes essays and articles on film and contemporary art and organizes exhibitions. This volume is based on a series she published in the weekend supplement of the tageszeitung from 2017 to 2019.