The Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung (Alexander Tutsek-Foundation) supports art and science. It was established in 2000 by Alexander Tutsek and Dr. Eva-Maria Fahrner-Tutsek as a nonprofit foundation in Munich. The foundation is deliberately committed to the special, the neglected, and the overlooked.
In its internationally oriented exhibition and collecting activities, the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung concentrates on contemporary sculptures and installations using the medium of glass and on modern photography. The foundation also sponsors institutions for innovative exhibitions, while supporting artists with a large sponsorship program to improve education for students in the field of sculpture with a focus on glass or photography.
Until February 26, 2021, the foundation is holding an exhibition entitled ABOUT US: Young Photography from China, which features seventy photographs of young Chinese artists that Dr. Eva-Maria Fahrner-Tutsek acquired for the foundation on her numerous trips to China over the past two years. We invited her to tell us more about the foundation and to share her favorite pieces with us. (Interview conducted on December 18, 2020)
Tell us more about the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung. What was the vision that led your late husband and yourself to its founding?
The foundation did not grow out of an eccentric philanthropic gesture or a personal passion to collect art. We understand its work and generous support not only in the field of contemporary art but also in the natural sciences as an activity relevant to society. Our vision is a living world of art and science that advances society’s progress. With our commitment and our funding projects, we focus on supporting especially neglected fields in art and science and would like to make them sustainably stronger.
What is the focus of the foundation’s activities?
The focus of our work in the field of art is on presenting the diversity of contemporary art, especially in the media of glass and photography. We want to give artists who work with these media a platform. The foundation’s headquarters is located in a former artist’s studio in a Jugendstil villa in the Schwabing district of Munich. There we regularly show exhibitions on innovative themes. Our central approach is not collecting art but supporting creative ideas. The foundation’s second emphasis lies on support research in the engineering sciences. This takes place mainly at universities. We award grants and support larger scientific projects.
How did you come to know the photographic landscape in China?
On many journeys in China, both professional and private, I have engaged with the country, had personal experiences, gained insights, and also got to know its art. I had to search for photography. In China, it is similar to Europe: there are not so many opportunities to see works by artists who work with the camera. Fortunately, several galleries have specialized in art photography, and I got to know the more known photography scene. That was a first step, and my interest was piqued. Via the Internet, artists, and friends, I then worked my way into the scene that is less visible to the public. I kept an eye out for women artists in particular, who at first glance are, with a few exceptions, not as present as their male colleagues.
How do you select photographs to purchase?
I am a photographer myself and have often traveled in China with friends to places that are not yet developed for tourism in order to take pictures. I get to know people and their lives not only in the large cities tourists usually visit, but also in cities with populations in the millions that are completely unknown in Europe and in small villages in the countryside. Every time I return to China, I experience close up how dramatically the country has changed, modernized, in the briefest time.
I see and photograph the country from outside, like other photographers coming from the West. What preoccupies and interests me: How is the country seen from inside? How is it lived and experienced by its people, by young people? How do young, creative people deal with their individual life experiences? With the political and social consequences of the rapid economic and also political transformation in their country? With the resulting industrialization and urbanization, which in some cases is dramatically reshaping their countryside and living space? How is that reflected in their photography?
I acquire nearly all the photographs for the collection of the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung locally. The selection of a purchase of photography (from China) is my interest in the feeling for life, mentality, and self-understanding of the people, especially of the young generation. Many of the selected photographs can be seen in our current exhibition (unfortunately, because of the coronavirus it is not open currently) and in the foundation’s new exhibition (hopefully from the summer of 2021).
Would you please share your favorite pieces [of Chinese photography] with us and tell us why you chose them?
That’s difficult. For every single photograph or sculpture that I acquire for the foundation, I have a specific reason to decide on the work and the artist. In that sense, every work is something special for me. But let me think: Of the more famous artists, I have been fascinated again and again by the surprising works of the artist duo Birdhead (Song Tao and Ji Weiyu). Their conceptual work is dedicated to everyday things, not in nostalgia, but also visual alternatives to the new extravagant modernity. In our exhibitions, I stop over and over in front of the mysterious black-and-white photographs of Adou. They are documents of a search for lost time and vanished places. But I would not like to miss the very different works of artists such as Cai Dongdong, Cao Fei, Chen Ronghui, Gao Bo, Shen Wei, and Wang Ningde either. And that’s just as true, of course, of the photographs by artist who are already famous in Europe, such as Ren Hang, Rong Rong, and Yang Fudong.
The younger artists mean a lot to me. Their own visual idioms and statements are important for understanding life today and modern photography in China. The question of the role of women and sexual orientation and economic equality is posed by the young photographer Liang Xiu, who focuses on her private sphere and social environment. Chen Wenjun & Jiang Yanmei as well as Fan Ye focus in their series on the relationship between the situation of the individual and the sociocultural environment. The role of young women in China is a major topic of Luo Yang. Liao Pixy is a master on that theme, playing critically in arranged scenes with the generally expected gender roles of man and woman. I also find the works of the young couple Liu Ke & Huang Huang interesting as well as that of Cheng Alex Hunanfa. They explore and thematize their partnership as if in a diary. By contrast, the photographs of Gao Mingxi are artistic compositions that look like drawings or paintings, in part because they derive more from the artist’s imagination than from observed reality. And I could name many more …
Will you continue to develop the collection of Chinese photographers?
Yes, of course! It is one of the emphases of the foundation’s collection. We already have a rather large collection of contemporary photography from China on certain special thematic aspects. It is constantly growing through acquisitions and is thus kept current and “young.” In the coming years, I will incorporate the entire Asian sphere more and so expand our focus “Contemporary Photography in Asia.” For example, at present I am working on photography in Korea and the Southeast Asian countries. I see thrilling and unique developments there.
What’s next for the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung?
We are looking forward to our monograph ABOUT US: Young Photography in China, which will be published very soon, in February 2021 by Hirmer Publishers. This publication with essays by Petra Giloy-Hirtz, Marine Cabos-Brullé , Karen Smith, and me is intended as a contribution to the discourse on contemporary photography in China. Not so much of it is known and visible in the Western world. The more than 200 photographs by 40 artists chosen for the book offer inside views of artists living in China. Their themes revolve around self-perception, subjective experiences, and everyday ways of living. They range from documentation of the explosive social change by way of critical perception of the new living conditions in the metropolises and in the countryside to attentiveness to its vanishing cultural heritage. Whether in quiet, black-and-white aesthetic suggestive of documentaries or as a dramatic presentation in color, they all tell of the artists’ own experiences: About Us. They are mirrors of ideas and fears, of isolation and lust for life, of curiosity and depression, of confusion and coolness of their authors.
Then we have another exciting project in the near future: We are currently readying new, additional spaces for exhibitions in Munich. A large exhibition on a social relevant theme will be shown in both buildings from mid-2021 onward and will include both sculpture and photographs by international artists. Works by artists from China will be included, of course!
More information: www.atutsek-stiftung.de