Photography festival in the city

The art of photography is currently being celebrated in style in Copenhagen during Copenhagen Photo Festival. We are also taking part in the celebrations with no fewer than two auctions of photographic art – at Bredgade and online – from Brassaï to Knut Åsdam.

Bredgade in festival mood

For the second year in a row, we have chosen to participate in Copenhagen’s very own photo festival, Copenhagen Photo Festival – this time with no fewer than two auctions of photographic art. The festival takes place in early June, and this time, we have chosen to dedicate a whole section to photographic art in the catalogue for this summer’s international auction of modern art at Bredgade. A wide selection of art photos and documentary photos is also set to feature at online auction 1425, which ends at 6 pm on 17 June.

Illuminating Eliasson

Among the works set to go under the hammer at the international auction at Bredgade is a series of photographs by Olafur Eliasson, including a triptych from his Iceland series – a unique artwork depicting the iconic illuminated Icelandic greenhouses against the black lava landscape. In addition to the obvious fascinating contrast between light and dark – inside and out – the photograph sheds light on a paradoxical meeting of the wild forces of nature, inherent in the black Icelandic lava underground, and man’s attempt to control them and extract energy. The work, which was created for a special exhibition in 2001, is thus rooted in two central themes in Eliasson’s universe – light and energy.

The urban photographer Brassaï

International names such as the French-Hungarian photographer Brassaï – famous for his city scenes – and the Frenchman Robert Doisneau, whose work is currently being exhibited at Gl. Holtegård, also feature at the auction, as do a number of Danish photographers of international calibre. The Danish art photographer Trine Søndergaard, who is rarely found at auction, is represented by one of her “Monochrome portraits”, together with another master of portrait photography, Ole Christiansen. Christiansen’s portraits of Chinese actress Maggie Cheung have a particularly fascinating clean and graphic quality about them. In 1998, one of them was used as the signature photo for the Night Film Festival.

Voluptuous women and Chinese beauties

Alongside the international auction at Bredgade, you can also bid on a number of other interesting photos at online auction 1425, including a large collection of nude studies of women by Danish photographer Knud Buus Jensen. Buus Jensen, who was deeply respected in photographic circles and, among other things, the co-founder of “Selskabet for dansk fotografi” (the society of Danish photography), was meticulous with his use of light and shade in his shoots and developed his own darkroom technique, which has imbued several of the photographs in the collection with a special quality. The online auction also features a pair of interesting panoramic photographs from Canton, China in the 1920s as well as works by Adolph de Meyer von Gloeden and Birgitta Lund, not to mention interesting documentary photographs from China and Japan from c. 1900 as well as Perkhammer’s famous photography book “The Culture of the Nude in China” from 1928.

The preview of online auction 1425 takes place at Baltikavej 10, DK-2150 Nordhavn on 16–17 June, 10 am – 5 pm, and the auction ends at 6 pm on 17 June at bruun-rasmussen.dk.

 

View all photographic art works at the international auction

View all photografic art works at the online auction

View all items including in the auction

Read more about the auction and download the catalogues

Order the catalogues

 

For further information, please contact:

Christine Almlund: 8818 1216 · cal@bruun-rasmussen.dk

For further information, please contact:

Christine Almlund: 8818 1216 · cal@bruun-rasmussen.dk