"TRADE: Commodities, Communication, and Consciousness in World Trade Today"
2001-06-16 until 2001-08-19
Fotomuseum, Winterthur
Winterthur, , CH Switzerland

Since time immemorial, the world has been determined by trade and commerce. Commodities are produced and manufactured in one place, offered for sale, exchanged and bought in another, shipped, dispatched, resold and consumed in many different destinations. This seems to be a never-ending principle that has existed from the first warehouses and reshipment ports to todays wholesale trade. But the ways, volumes and values have acquired undreamed-of dimensions. We can observe the concrete transfer of the merchandise on the water, on the roads and in the air, but it has lost much of its visual impact: rationalisation and regularisation have robbed trade of its charm, and containerisation has neutralised its flavour and vitality.

In the stock exchanges, we encounter total abstraction – abstraction of money, shares, options and figures. Together, they simulate trade volumes, trade movements and trade worlds. How can the new global trade acquire a visual form and be expressed in picturesNULL What are its waysNULL Which values does it engender, and which does it annulNULL These are the questions asked by the exhibited entitled Trade, organised by Thomas Seelig (Cologne) and Urs Stahel (Winterthur). The exhibition, which will be held in Winterthur from 16 June to 19 August 2001, comprises works by 60 international photographers and artists. It will subsequently be shown in the Nederlands Foto Instituut in Rotterdam at the beginning of 2002.

IMAGE:
Isabelle Grosse
Autonom Barcelona, 1999
C-Print on Aluminium,
120 x 180 cm
Courtesy Galerie Anton Weller, Paris

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