(in matters of) Karl
(in matters of) Karl | 2015 | installation and publication
In 2007 a photo album was anonymously gifted to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., its content stirring world wide media attention. The album contains more than one hundred images depicting the everyday life of Nazis working in the Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in Poland. The album is nowadays referred to as the ‘Höcker Album’ named after its owner: Karl Friedrich Höcker. The photographs reveal the relationships of high ranking officers and auxiliary personnel, they show the people who are depicted living a ‘normal’ life, detached from the horrendous crimes they committed.
(in matters of) Karl is a research-project about the photo album itself and the historic information shown in the images. Besides, it deals with the reproduction of images and the representation of historic images and information in archives. The different layers are held together by the story of the journey I took to realise this work and the confrontation with my own German heritage.
A special thank you to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and its wonderful staff for sharing so much knowledge, giving me access to the original object and allowing me to use the images in my work.
Annette Behrens — (in matters of) Karl
published by Fw.Books
21×29.7cm / 128 pages / colour (+ special varnish layer) / English / edition of 600 / isbn 978-94-90119-34-8 /
Design Hans Gremmen / with additional texts by Christophe Busch and Raymond Frenken
TIME Picks the Best Photobooks of 2015
"This is a nuanced, complex and extraordinarily forthright book that contains rigorous, insightful and evocative research. Behren’s book compels us to deal with the dangers of a forgetful relationship to our past, as well as to consider the moral challenges involved in any effort to retrieve what has been neglected or suppressed. (in matters of) Karl confronts photography’s tendency to seem grossly insufficient in the face of the unforgivable, and its capacity to give us a means to come face to face with the iniquities of our past."
Selected by photographer and writer Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa
2016 Historic Book Award Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles
Photo Text Award, nomination, Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles
2015 Paris Photo Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards, short list
Best Photobooks 2015 TIME Lightbox
Best Photobook 2015 PDN
Best Photobooks 2015 Volkskrant
(in matters of) Karl is available in a number of incredible libraries such as at Tate Library in London, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, Harvard University in Cambridge, Yale University Library in New Haven, The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art New York, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., and many others.
Video with many thanks to Arthur Bueno | taken during ‘Browsing Sessions’ at Het Wilde Weten, Rotterdam, 2016 initiated by Sannetje van Haarst
