23 years young, photographer Peter Maurer realized the photo series “Journey to the Future City” in 1986 in Biel/Bienne. It was his entry for a competition on the theme of “Future”, possibly announced by the city – Peter Maurer is no longer quite sure, not after so long. He even lived in the Biel area that year, Maurer remembers, and did an internship with a master of the Swiss photography scene, Heini Stucki. With his dreamy, dynamic self-staging as a traveling salesman leaping into the Biel cityscape – into a light-flooded vision of the future – Peter Maurer won the competition and collected CHF 3,000 in prize money – “a lot of money in those days,” Maurer laughs. The photos were then exhibited at Photoforum Pasquart, which had just celebrated its third anniversary, and subsequently purchased by the art commission of the city of Biel/Bienne.

Now, a photograph from Maurer’s series adorns the poster for the Photoforum’s summer exhibition titled BACK UP THE FUTURE, produced in collaboration with the Office of Culture. The Photoforum has entrusted Biel artist and photographer Thalles Piaget, himself barely older than Peter Maurer was in 1986, with the task of making a subjective selection from the 2485 photographic works listed in the art collection of the city of Biel/Bienne. With his fresh and professional eye as well as an unerring sense for photographic qualities, he has spanned an arch of images that is as rich as it is surprising, from portraits from the 19th century to contemporary photographic art. Against the backdrop of the city of Biel/Bienne, the exhibition brings together well-known Biel/Bienne names such as Christian Staub, Heini Stucki, Jeanne Chevalier, Alexander Jaquemet, Guadeloupe Ruiz Françoise and Daniel Cartier, Rolf Neeser or Eric Sandmeier with international greats such as Christian Vogt, Mathieu Gafsou, Raphael Hefti, Oscar Wiggli, Ernst and Margrit Baumann as well as lesser-known or already forgotten artistic positions. In addition, Thalles Piaget has made some surprising discoveries, such as a portrait photograph from the camera of the former director of the Photoforum and current director of the Centre de la Photographie in Geneva, Danaé Panchaud, or a slide series by Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs, created for and exhibited at the Bieler Fototage a few years ago. The art collection of the city of Biel/Bienne thus turns out to be a rich local “back-up” of a medium that has shaped our society like hardly any other and is constantly evolving.

A big thank you goes to the Department of Culture of the City of Biel/Bienne for the support, especially to Hannah Külling for the great cooperation.

https://kunstsammlung.biel-bienne.ch
https://www.thallespiaget.ch