How Images Manipulate Reality
In 1985, advertiser and conceptual artist Michael Schirner led visitors to his photo exhibition in Hamburg’s exhibition halls into a room without a single photograph. Instead, he displayed 40 black panels with brief descriptions of images. His exhibition, " Pictures in Our Minds ," appealed to the viewer’s visual memory, evoking iconic images burned into our collective consciousness. A few words were enough to conjure famous scenes in the mind’s eye—Einstein sticking out his tongue or Marilyn Monroe with her billowing dress over a New York subway grate. In 2010, Schirner exhibited in Hamburg again. This time, the photos on display were familiar to everyone. However, the artist presented well-known press images from which crucial elements had been digitally removed. Once more, Schirner relied on the viewer’s imagination, as the visual memory automatically fills in what isn’t shown—such as the soldiers raising the American flag on Iwo Jima, German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s kn...
