The publication “Nihil sub sole novum” introduces a new aspect to the work of Basle based artist Cécile Hummel, who is known to a wider public primarily for her drawings. Cécile Hummel has been taking photographs since the beginning of her artistic exploration. Some of her photographs are created to accompany her drawings, others are independent projects.
Since 2005, photographs have been created in connection with the artist's travels to Italy, reflecting the context of the travel photography that has a decisive influence on our image of Italy in illustrated books. The photographs that she collects under the title “Contrapunctum” consciously seek a counter-position, or counterpoint, to the common views of the famous locations and sights. Her pictures are about life, about the atmosphere, about the individual, subjective and not the generalized view.
In addition to the pictures that are created on site, there are also photographs that depict already existing photographs. Often, however, these are not completely reproduced, but fragmented by covering or focusing, so that new perspectives and shifts in content are created.
This publication, developed and realized in collaboration with the designers Diego Bontognali and Valeria Bonin, now brings together these different perspectives. The three texts written for the book by Axel Gampp, Matthias Kuhn and Peter Gisi reflect on the artist’s themes and working methods and supplement the photographs arranged into thematic groups with literary images.