Annette Kelm Origami Bird, 2025

The work depicts a small origami in the shape of a bird appears perched on a small twig in front of a light green background. The work juxtaposes paper in different shapes, once as clearly artificial yet still recognizable animal, the other flattened. Overall the use of the whimsical everyday object gives a sense of familiarity, even as the idiosyncratic combination provokes puzzlement. These self-referential allusions to studio photography, to the artificiality of its staging, are a characteristic gesture in Kelm's practice, whose works are always imbued with a deep knowledge of and reflection on the medium of photography and its history.