What looks like a shopping Eldorado for tourists on the one hand is an absurd theater in the eyes of photographer Bertram Kober. The Stages are cramped shop windows and shelves of the stores in Groedner Valley (Groednertal) / South Tirol. The located „scultori“ (sculptors) are known for their wood crafts all over Europe. Their madonna-, saint- and godfigures own a character of trademark. Bought as a single piece they conduce to private devotion but exhibited they become mass products, packed closely one upon the other, side by side. Also twosomes à la Klimt, putti, dwarfs and Pinoccios get intermixed and expand the purchaseable batch.
Since a couple of years Bertram Kober has noticed and photographed this constellations on his visits in this area. The photographer proves hisself as an astute observer of cultural disavowals  just like he used to do in his former works (for example in „Kulpoche“ and „Legitime Aspekte des Alltags“/ „Legitimate aspects of daily life“). Exhibited  as a part of the consumers world the saints (and their pledges also?) become a „critical matter“. The contention with this topic made the photographer from Leipzig to go further. He demanded more than only watching shop windows and stores.

Christine Dorothea Hoelzig

Abrigdement from: Presseerklaerung zur Ausstellung "la scultura - Fotografien des Leipziger Kuenstlers Bertram Kober“ in der "Burg galerie coiffeur". Leinfelden-Echterdingen. 16.4. 2005

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