Research and Teaching
Rivaling Reality. 60 Years of Photorealism
Exibition at Museum Frieder Burda
to August 2nd, 2026
Martina Sauer during the themed tour at the Frieder Burda Museum, Photo: Claudia Lidle, April 21, 2026
As if it were a painting. As if it were the original.
What is reality?
Photo display at the Frieder Burda Museum featuring a reproduction of a detail from Richard Estes’s Richmond Diner, 1983; photo by Claudia Lidle, April 21, 2021.
Reality is reality, isn’t it?
The fact that reality is always subjective and depends on what someone considers important is crucial to understanding what reality is. Objectivity cannot be expected in this context. So it’s no surprise that we talk about “fake news” today—news that we all constantly produce, since we always reflect only refect what is important to us.
The problems that arise from this are familiar to us today. As far back as 400 B.C.—Plato drew attention to this in his "Allegory of the Cave".
It is therefore no surprise that the photorealist painters since the 1960s in the U.S. have used their works to reflect their reality and what is important to them: They portray their friends (Phil, 1969, by Chuck Close); they depict “their” city, New York, as free and multicultural (Lunch Special, 2001, by Richard Estes); and accordingly, they present what matters to them in the right light, such as the diner as a central gathering place (the Richmond Diner, 1983, by Ralph Goings; see photo).
Only more recently have doubts begun to cast a shadow over this glory, and the darker sides of our needs and perspectives have come into sharper focus. The art scene, too, is becoming more diverse and varied. For example, Alexandra Klimas, with her portrait of a bull (Rudi the Unseen Bull, 2025), gives the animal a face and a name.
As a result, the steak probably doesn’t taste quite as good to some people anymore.
For more background information see the following two articles by Martina Sauer:
(2020) What is reality? Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, and the artist Karin Kneffel on the deconstruction of the familar as liberation from determiniation, in: On the Postmodern Age [Art Style 6, Sept. 2020], edited by Martina Sauer: 101—120.
(2023) Marshall McLuhan in a New Light. Old and New Methods of Influencing Emotions in Communities of the Electronic Age. In Beyond Media Literacy, edited by Lars Grabbe, Andrew McLuhan, and Tobias Held. Marburg: Büchner, 14—32.
Video-Lecture on Transformations Using the Example of Photo Series by
Katharina Sievering
Katharina Sieverding, Transformer Cyan Solarisation 5 A/B, 1973/74. Color photograph, acrylic, and steel frames, 2 parts, each 190 x 125 cm, © Klaus Mettig,
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021
Technical University of Chemnitz
Online Conference of the German Society of Semiotics about Transformations, Section Image:
Panel Speech, Video lecture, September 28, 2021 on
Vitality Semiotics. Impulses from the Hamburg Circle around Warburg, Cassirer and Werner about a new Method in Image and Cultural Philosophy
Article on postmodern worlds using as an example the pictures of Karin Kneffel
Karin Kneffel, Grapes, 240 x 199,8 cm, Museum Frieder Burda Foto: Karin Kneffel
In On the Postmodern Age.
Martina Sauer (ed.)
Art Style, Art & Culture International Magazine 6, New York, São Paulo,
2020: 101—120
Article on "Karin Kneffel and the deconstruction of the familiar as liberation from determiniation".
Educational Film
about Art and Sciences
"The Midden", Baden-Baden, collection of plastic waste, Explanations from the mathematicianMargaret Wertheim
Photo: Martina Sauer, 27.01.2022
Fresenius Hochschule
University of Applied Sciences
SS 2022 educational film (intranet)
Cultural history of formation II, exibition and participative project:
"Margaret und Christine Wertheim. Value and Change of Coral Reefs", Museum Frieder Burda Baden-Baden, together with Prof. Dr. Petra Leutner, Akademie Mode & Design, Hamburg
