Die Lutz Teutloff Collection
Prof. Dr. Wulf Herzogenrath, Direktor Kunsthalle Bremen, 2007
The Teutloff Collection combines thematic consistency with a very high level of quality across an astonishing diversity of range

The human body, sensuality, the sexual element – these have been constant themes of painting and sculpture over the centuries whose depths painters like Leonardo, Rubens, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec and Lempicka have plumbed in hymns of colour and vibrant form. Even though photography with its early black and white and distancing technique might have seemed more suitable for documentary and experimental works, we can see from its very birth how artists have constantly used the alluring nearness to the object of desire to transform it into a sensuous medium offering a direct expression of true delight.

The sensuality of the body is one of the aspects that the Teutloff Collection is focussed on; yet at the same time it also directs our gaze to the documentary, the political, the experimental and the ironic – in other words it is not a single style, country or époque that forms the bond unifying the whole Collection, but rather the wish to assemble as exhaustive a range as possible of ways of viewing the human body. Perhaps the word “inventory” is not misplaced in this context because the Collection covers both pioneers and stars, famous and successful photographers and artists whose work has more to do with painting (Albert Henning), sculpture (Erwin Wurm) or performance (Vanessa Beecroft) – just as much as photographers whose work has shaped our view of the world over the decades (Stefan Moses, Will McBride, Thomas Hoepker to mention but three).

Leading photographers with whose photos we are long familiar from the glossy magazines (Hilmar Pabel, Michael Ruetz, Barbara Klemm, Robert Lebeck, Evelyn Richter, Annie Leibovitz, Martin Parr etc.) feature on the exhaustive list alongside darlings of the art market (Rosemarie Trockel, Andy Warhol, Jürgen Klauke, Richard Hamilton etc.); winners of England’s highest art award, the Tate Gallery Turner Prize (Wolfgang Tillmans) and the Kaiser Ring award of the City of Goslar (Matthew Barney) appear next to photographers distinguished with photography’s highest accolade (Cindy Sherman); artists whose social commitment we value (Alfredo Jaar, Nan Goldin and so on) neighbour with the great and good of fashion photography like F.C. Gundlach and Horst P. Horst – not to mention the international masters of erotic photography like Helmut Newton and Nobuyoshi Araki.

What is striking is the enormous diversity of the different nationalities and domains of work covered. All major countries from Russia and China to America are represented with leading artists – in the best sense the Collection embodies a perspective that is truly international and global..The Collection ranges over a timeframe of three decades, yet the diversity of its aesthetic attitudes, styles and signatures is even richer than this might suggest, as despite their apparent differences the older generation – photographers like Leni Riefenstahl, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lucien Clergue and Robert Desnois –are all at a great remove from the younger one – artists like Una Szeemann, Ingrid Mwangi and Aurelia Mihai. They might be American, Chinese, Japanese, Russian or German, yet the majority of these contemporary artists are active on the global stage and can no longer be ascribed to any one country. They are as much at home in Berlin or New York as they are in London or Düsseldorf.

Another hallmark of the Collection is its lack of dogma. Leading names are represented with major works alongside the photos of younger more unknown artists which Teutloff feels to make a valuable contribution to the Collection. Given the particular focus of the domain he works in, Teutloff has made an astonishing number of surprising discoveries – again and again bringing to the fore young, fresh and novel ways of looking at the world.

As a collector he has succeeded in assembling a collection distinguished by vitality and vibrant sensuality, deep and abundant diversity, a collection that offers some of the most important works in the canon of photography yet is also equally alive to the shock of the new and unexpected, a collection that more than celebrates the overflowing riches of its chosen domain.