Alfred Seiland

Alfred Seiland © Raimond Spekking

“USA
Back then: gladly again and again.
Today: gladly less and less.“

Alfred Seiland

This work is the essence of several trips Alfred Seiland took through the USA between 1979 and 1999. A large part of it was published in his debut work ‘East Coast – West Coast’ from 1986 and resulted in his first solo museum exhibition in the USA at the Art Institute of Chicago. A sensitive documentation that reflects aspects of everyday life with photographic virtuosity. He is able to read unusual moods and situations and to appreciate them as phenomena.

Seilands‘ work here in Gutenbrunner Park coincides with that of Joel Meyerowitz. Both have a similar approach to the choice of their motifs and interpret them in a “related” way. They have met each other several times during their travels through the USA, and they know and appreciate each other. However, they have never exhibited together. What makes their visual encounter in Baden so exciting is their origin: an American from the Bronx and a European from Leoben view the USA through the focus of their cameras. The result of this ‘pairs’ is impressively similar and yet very differentiated. A case study in photography and artistic interpretation like no other.

Alfred Seiland began taking photographs as an autodidact in the late 1960s. Since 1979, he has been working with analogue large-format cameras. His focus is on landscape photography in the broader sense. His work from 1995 to 2001 for the FAZ campaign ‘Dahinter steckt immer ein kluger Kopf’ (There’s always a clever mind behind it) and his 20-year long-term project ‘Imperium Romanum’ have attracted international attention and made Seiland one of the most important photographers of our time. His work has won many awards and is represented in the collections of important museums around the world, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, or has been shown in major solo exhibitions, such as at the Albertina in Vienna – but also at photography festivals such as Les Rencontres d’Arles.

From 1997 to 2019, Seiland was a professor of photography at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design.