In a con­cur­rent exhi­bi­tion, Kun­sthaus Lan­gen­thal will present its first show­case of work by the Bernese pho­tog­ra­pher Beat Jost (*1936), fea­tur­ing images cre­ated at his «Studio for com­mer­cial pho­tog­ra­phy» between the 1960s and the 1990s. Ret­ro­spec­tively, Jost wants his work to be under­stood as a «rep­utable hand­i­craft», which nev­er­the­less allows his pho­tographs to spon­ta­neously develop a some­times sober, some­times cap­ti­vat­ing and con­tin­u­ing beauty – one that spans from daily life at the time to the present day. In the depicted prod­ucts of Swiss indus­trial com­pa­nies, archi­tects and design­ers, Jost’s images also con­tain an inher­ent beauty of pre­ci­sion: from Vidmar filing cab­i­nets to Pier­rot ice creams, from Authier ski­wear to knitwear and bank branches; these objects are in a state of per­ma­nent new­ness and herald a future to come – one which for us has already passed into history.

A coop­er­a­tion with Foto­büro Bern, curated by Markus Schürpf and Raf­fael Dörig. A pub­li­ca­tion will accom­pany the exhibition.

The exhi­bi­tions are gen­er­ously sup­ported by:

Geneve

ge.ch

Kresau4Stiftung

pro­hel­vetica

Landis & Gyr Stiftung

Guggen­heim Stiftung