PAULA MUHR: ON SHOW
Shop windows are, similar to TV screens, visual stages. Paula Muhr, who studied photography and literature in Belgrade but in the meantime lives in Berlin, was captivated by display windows during her long walks through the streets of various cities in her previous homeland. These shop windows refer to other, bygone times. They are either empty or their aesthetics is antiquated. In any case, they fail to fulfil their function of promoting merchandise.
Some of the exhibited items are not always intended for sale, but are rather objects which are personally valued by the respective shop owner (for instace, two pots wih plants). Nevertheless, such scenes are intentionally constructed in a way that when lit up at night, they acquire stage-like qualities. The stage, in this sense, refers not only, generally speaking, to a specifically designed area restricted by the display window, but also, more specifically, to stages in their true sense as in images which show photographs displayed in a window serving as an advertisement for a photo studio. An image within another image. Similarly, in one of the images we are promised ten percent of the sky.
Paula Muhr collects and preserves these display windows in the form of photographs which tell of much more than just consumerism. Instead, they become allegories of a changing society.
