Klara Meinhardt in »Kind of Copy—Cyanotype/Blueprint«
Museum für Fotokopie /MFF, Mühlheim an der Ruhr
22 August—13 October 2019

01/03 «»
Klara Meinhardt: from the series Fries, 2016, Cyanotype on paper, 45 x 33 cm
Klara Meinhardt: from the series Fries, 2016, Cyanotype on paper, 45 x 33 cm

Tom Carpenter [Rochester/US],
Sara Förster [Bremen],
Gabriele [Mülheim],
Sandra Krause Goméz [Berlin],
Ute Lindner [Berlin]
Klara Meinhardt [Leipzig]

Kind of Copy—Cyanotype /Blueprint
Copying did not always take place by a simple push of a button: a copy, the reproduction of something already existing, can be created by very different methods. There was and is not just one copy technique, but a multitude of them. In order to bring these different copying methods to consciousness again, to place and anchor them there, also with regard to the development of photocopy, the new exhibition series "Kind of Copy" of the Museum of Photocopy deals with the broad concept of copying.

The second exhibition in the »Kind of Copy« series is devoted to »cyanotype« - the first large-scale photographic process known everywhere as blueprint. The cyanotype was the third photographic process following daguerreotype and calotype. It uses the photosensitivity of iron salts and was invented in 1842 by the astronomer John Herschel. When exposed [usually in contact with a transparent template] the UV radiation contained in the daylight causes a change in the photosensitive substance, this becomes insoluble and by developing in water transforms to Berlin Blue, a very light-resistant deep blue dye. In the shadow parts of the original, the layer stays unchanged and dissolves in the water, creating a negative image. The cyanotype is considered a photographic fine-print method. It has been popular among artists for many decades and even today* because it is quite cheap and versatile, needs no special chemical developer or a darkroom, and last but not least because the cyanotypes are light-resistant, which is important for the sale.

As part of the exhibition, we will approach international artists* who have appropriated this and related blueprint techniques in different ways and use them for their artistic processes.


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Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 48
45468 Mülheim an der Ruhr
Museum für Fotokopie /MFF
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