Special exhibition Glyptothek: Greek Temples. Black and white photographs by Richard Berndt

The Glyptothek has a tradition of displaying works of contemporary art alongside the ancient originals at regular intervals. In the exhibition “Greek Temples”, Richard Berndt, an ambitious amateur, presents his black and white photographs of ancient sanctuaries and takes us back to Greece and lower Italy. Ancient sculpture thus meets ancient architecture, which usually provided the setting for its installation. In other respects, too, the location for the presentation of such photographs could hardly have been better chosen with the neoclassical Glyptothek and its façade inspired by Greek temple architecture.

The temples of the Greeks, which have usually only survived as ruins, are among the most impressive images that remain in the memory of a trip to ancient Greek sites. Richard Berndt has captured some of them with his camera in a very unique way: The large-format images show sections and thus draw the eye to the diverse details of Greek temple architecture. Some well-known temples can therefore only be identified at second or third glance. The fragmentary that Richard Berndt literally brings out with his camera allows the viewer to discover both the new and the familiar in the selected temples – a very similar experience to the one that visitors can have on their hundredth visit to the Glyptothek when looking at a supposedly very familiar sculpture. In this way, the exhibition opens the eyes to the undiscovered in the familiar.